Ω Misfit Rangers
by M.L. Shards
Summary: [PR:SPD] From a human to a ball of light and back, Sam or Omega Ranger's been through a lot in the past few months. When he arrives back in the future he finds himself faced with a new dilemma and a tricky issue of team dynamics.
1. Chapter 1

FIRST of all this story is under Sky because he plays a bigger role than Sydney, Z, Jack, Bridge, Kat or Cruger, but he is not the main focus of the story so if you are looking for a story focused mainly on Sky, please turn back now… After process of emilination that leaves one ranger for the story to sort of focus on.

**Omega Ω Ranger**

: D

This story came from the fact I didn't feel Omega Ranger was focused on enough during the show, I didn't like the fact he was a ball of light and wanted to know what happened to him when he got back but mainly I wanted to attempt to explain a few things, such as:

Why when Sam came through he was such a snob and why he appeared to have no sense of teamwork even though he was a fully trained ranger (and if he was chosen for such an important mission he must have had his ranger status for awhile)

Why Sam did not initially introduce himself as being Sam instead calling himself the Omega Ranger

Why he had a gold badge/plate on his uniform when the others did not

Why Nova was so abrupt and barely said anything in Endings Part 2

Why Sam and Nova did not call each other by there names (Sam refers to her only as Nova in the show and she does not refer to him as Sam)

Why they were suddenly giving rangers "special" designations such as Nova and Omega in the future

Why their uniforms seemed to match yet both seemed to be rangers who were "odd" ex. Quantum Ranger, Lunar Wolf, etc.

And mainly to give a glimpse into what Sam left and came back to… 

Yup…though I will admit to not have watched S.P.D. while it was on the air and only have seen episodes from the internet. Though I believe I have a good grasp on the basics and details that count.

I do however watch Dekaranger…A LOT! So I've taken some elements of that show, but not too much for the few I know who hate Super Sentai. There's only a few in there and you can only see it if you squint…

I do not work for Disney, I do not own Power Rangers, I am making no money from this. I do however have some creative rights to the character development of Nova and to the original characters that make up the B-Squad Rangers of 2045 (remembering the rank of A-Squad was retired at the end of the series).

Reviews are the only way I will be motivated enough to keep this story going, if it does not do well I will simply take it down.

I have also put this up just as a tester to see if people like it now…after all that intro… on with the story!

* * *

And that was it.

Sam looked around the Command Center and sighed as he and Nova stepped down from the step they'd materialized on. It looked exactly the same, except for a few changes and the colours of buttons. Minor detail, it was still arranged the same way as it had been fifteen years earlier.

"Ugh! About time we got back," Nova grunted cracking her neck, "you were a bitch to find Omega."

Sam rolled his eyes, "How does that work? Weren't you told were I was in the timeline?"

Nova raised an eyebrow at Sam, "You just spent a few months working with Tate, does he seem like the type to be overly specific when it comes to" she used her fingers to put quotations around what she was saying, "matters of timeline security. Hell, I ended up running into Lightspeed Rescue, twice before I finally got out of the year 2000. Trust me, erasing their memories wasn't easy, oh and then I almost got eaten by a stupid T-Rex when my morpher malfunctioned and I ended up way, way back when. Oh but other than that it was very easy Omega, and when I get there I have to save your ass. Do I even get a thank you?"

"Well…thanks Lisa," Sam replied scratching the back of his head nervously, she'd seemed so cheery back in 2025…

She frowned, "Don't call me that."

"Alright, thanks Nova Ranger."

She smiled, "Much better, now come on, let's go see why the welcoming party isn't here."

In fact, no one was in the Command Center presently, it kind of unnerved him, normally Kat was there if no one else. But the sounds coming from the hallway made him feel more comfortable since it meant there were indeed people in the vicinity

He followed his commanding officer out into the hallway where it was buzzing with activity, but it didn't look like the good kind. Cadets were scrambling all over the place, and Nova almost got run over by Kat as she scurried into the Command Center looking down at the pad in her hand, and not up.

"Sorry," she muttered as she brushed passed them into the Command Center only looking up briefly as she apologized, "Sam, can you pass me the pad on the consol over there?"

Sam and Nova exchanged a puzzled glance before Sam picked up the bright red electronic pad from the monitoring consol and handed it to the feline doctor who proceeded to plug it into a wire attached to the largest viewing screen in the Command Center. An image of the old SWAT flyers flickered on the screen before being replaced by that of the current Zords.

"Kat, what's going on?" Sam asked as he took in the image of the Command Center a little closer but his voice overlapped with another, more commanding one.

"Cadet Bright, Cadet Breaker, what are you doing here? Why aren't you out helping the B-Squad?"

"Commander Tate, uh…we just got back from…" Sam replied looking around in confusion, "we're slightly confused."

"Yeah, everything was okay when I left," Nova shot back much harsher than she had intended.

Tate opened his mouth to respond, but instead a small, barely noticeable smirk appeared on his face, before being replaced with a frown…that's what Cruger had wanted to see the two gold badges about the week before…He puffed out his chest a bit more as he studied to two of them, "Alright, just get to your Zords, Kat will brief you when you get there.

"Zord? Wasn't mine-" Sam began then shook his head.

"We've had a long time to fix it properly," Kat chimed in as she brushed passed.

Sam and Nova awkwardly saluted to Tate as they realized they must look like complete idiots just wandering around the Command Center when the Earth was under attack…

Gold Badges were rangers who were picked from the first few years of their training and placed into a special elite program. The officers were given special morphers, weapons, Zords, colours, names, and much more through training in certain areas, such as fighting styles and technology. They also (of course) literally had gold badges that were visible on their uniforms and rangers suits. Gold Badges were only dispatched to planets if they were in great danger and S.P.D. did not believe the A (or in this case B) Squad could handle the imminent threats.

Nova and Omega Rangers had been transferred to Earth only a year earlier as backup for the B-Squad rangers of 2045. Though the alien had been defeated, Supreme Commander Cruger had insisted Nova and Omega stay stationed on Earth until their assistance was required urgently elsewhere.

The problem was that with a gold badge not only came all the interesting perks, but a heightened arrogance, leaving them cut off from the other rangers as neither party was willing to commit to trying work as a team. So as it stood there was Nova and Omega as the one team and the B-Squad as the other. When Commander Tate had first run into a gold badge he understood why when Omega and he first met, Sam had changed from a sweet little boy to an arrogant fighter in a period of fifteen years. Nova was especially bad.

Since holding a slight rank and age advantage over Sam and the B-Squad rangers, she often took advantage of it, dragging Sam along with her and ordering the other rangers around in battle. She and Commander Tate had butted heads more than once on who was actually "in charge" of the base. While she was a pain to deal with most of the time, Sam had a way of softening her up, since they'd been trained together for most of their lives. Tate believed this was the reason for her cheeriness of finding him in the timeline and appearing so sweet and excited in 2025 (the brief moments he'd seen her).

But hopefully her stranglehold over Sam and the other rangers…and most of the base (asides from Tate, Kat, and the odd Cadet who was brave enough to stand up to her,) would change and the rangers would start working together. He could tell, right now even as he walked away from the young man, that he'd learned a lot from the "top secret" mission he'd been sent on.

The young man and Nova however, didn't move as he'd told them to. Sam appeared to be slightly dazed having arrived back only a few minutes after he'd left, when to him it had been months. Nova meanwhile rolled her eyes at her partner.

"What were you hoping for? A large reception?"

Sam let out a sad sigh, "I don't know, I thought maybe Z would be here or something…but you're right, it's stupid…"

Nova's eyes narrowed, "Honestly Omega, I thought you'd be a bit more grateful to be back."

"I am it's just-"

"Will you two stop flirting and get out there and help?"

Sam and Nova's heads snapped to the side to see a rather annoyed Commander Tate standing behind them. Nova bit her bottom lip and muttered a "yes sir" in a venomous tone, doing her version of a salute before turning and dragging Sam along with her. She knew he was in charge whether she liked it or not, but her First Officer didn't need to respond to him if she had anything to say about it.

Sam suddenly felt very sorry for Commander Tate, since Nova hated being made fun of and currently wore the look of "you're going to get yours one day". Probably compliments of her…

"Nova, what are you doing?" Sam demanded as she tugged him by the arm and walked briskly towards the Zord Bay, "We can't just-"

She stopped abruptly and turned so she was standing in front of him. The sudden change caused Sam to bump into her, but she didn't move. The top of her head only came up to his neck but she still managed to scare the crap out of him with little to no effort on her part. Nova's index finger pushed against Sam's chest as she spoke, "You listen to me, we are gold badges, no matter what he says, we are not under the same jurisdiction as the B-Squad. We listen to him only for courtesy."

"And because we'd get reassigned to a not so nice planet if we didn't?"

Nova paused in an almost comic manner then added, "Okay fine, that too, the point is I'm supposed to be in charge of the gold badges and it annoys the crap out of me that he never seems to remember that." She turned and continued towards the Zord Bay.

Resisting the urge to point out that he and Nova were the only gold badges in the Earth Branch of S.P.D. Sam jogged after her. She talked down and vented a lot, but he knew she didn't mind Commander Tate as much as she said she did.

When they arrived at the Zord Bay, Nova turned to him and brought her wrist up, "Let's go, you ready?"

Sam nodded, "Ready" he replied nodding as he flicked a button on the side of his morpher.

"S.P.D. Emergency,"

It was a strange sensation, morphing properly for the first time to what had been for him months, but everyone else a few minutes. Feeling the suit form over him and his helmet snap into place instead of it just all appearing at once like when he was just a ball of light. Taking a deep breath he hopped into the cockpit of his Zord, "Omega Ranger, logged in."

He heard a voice over his communicator, "Nova Ranger, logged in, where are we going, Kat?"

"Downtown, I'm sending the location to your Zord's GPS system, and linking you into the video feed to give you an idea as to what's going on."

The screen in front of him flickered briefly before it displayed the fight in progress with the B-Squad…it didn't look too good.

The Delta Squad Megazord appeared to have fallen onto a building and was now struggling to get up and continue its' fight against its' opponent. Its' opponent appeared to be a giant warped version of one of the _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles _with a black shell and a giant sword that it was using to deflect the few blasts the Megazord was getting out at it. It didn't look good. The voices of the B Squad could be heard over communicators.

"_Guys! We have to get back on our feet," _came the green ranger's voice

"_No shit Sherlock!" _the yellow ranger snapped back angrily.

The red ranger's voice cut through the argument, _"Stop arguing guys, we've got work to do" _

Sam smiled behind his helmet, he'd never realized it before, but Drew was actually pretty good at his job as the red ranger, "Hey guys, hang on, we're on our way."

"_Hey! Back off! We can handle this on our own!" _came the green ranger's harsh protest that stung Sam. He'd never been affected too much by the protests of having gold badges to help out, but after going back to where his real friends were in the past and realizing how little he was really appreciated there until he was needed made him really realize how he was viewed in the present.

"_Obviously if you could we wouldn't be here," _Nova snapped back, _"come on Omega, let's go." _

He hesitated momentarily before following Nova's Zord out of the bay. After coming from a time where teamwork was preached, but being trained his whole life that gold badges were above the level of ordinary officers, he wasn't sure if it was his place to say anything. He decided against it for the time being, they needed to focus on their jobs, but he might need to have a word with Commander Tate about what he'd learned…and try to make amends.

"_Alright, let's bring them together Omega, Megazord formation," _

"Right…" was Sam's response as he began pushing buttons, it was surreal to be back, he hadn't done a formation with Nova's Zord in what felt like forever…he hoped he didn't screw it up or he'd never hear the end of it.

The formation of Nova and Omega's Zords were similar to what Jack, Sky, Z, Bridge, and Sydney had come up with in 2025. Nova's Zord was a large robot, similar to what the Omegamax cycle could turn into in its' own. The two would combine together to become a "police officer" riding a cycle, then flip up into a robot of its' own. It wasn't as big as the Delta Squad Megazord, but it did have certain advantages, like speed and manoeuvrability. Sam had affectionately named it "Alpha" obviously to do with the connotations the Greek letters had to the ranger designations of the gold badges and after the little robot(s) that ran a large part of the operation of the Power Ranger'soperation with Zordon, Dimetria, and the Galaxy Rangers.

It only took a few minutes before the "Alpha" Megazord was standing in front of the Delta Squad Megazord.

"_We told you we're fine!" _came the harsh voice of the green ranger that was quickly cut off by that of the red's.

"_Chris, shut up, they're here to help and right now we need it!" _

"And that's why he's the red ranger," Sam mumbled to himself as he pushed a giant green button that was on the consol in front of him, "Alright Nova, I'm ready here."

"_Good, the Zord's Delta Sword is now online, now let's take care of this thing and then relax for a bit…it's been a long… long…really long few minutes."_

"Oh yeah," Sam responded wearily, he hadn't expected to be coming home to a giant turtle attacking the city…he really hadn't.

In the Delta Squad Megazord, the B-Squad listened to the exchange sceptically.

"Oh yeah, like Tate's going to agree with that," the green ranger muttered.

The pink ranger rolled her eyes behind her visor, "Hey, look, I don't like Nova anymore than you do, but stop hassling them right now, the last thing we need is the two S.P.D. fighting and the bad guy gets away because of it."

The green ranger went quiet after that.

The red ranger nodded, "Thank you Beth, now if we're a little more focused, I think we should try and take care of the business at hand. Ready?"

A chorus of "Ready" was the reply he received.

The red ranger hit a few buttons on his consol, causing the robot to lift up the giant blaster that it carried and aimed it at the robot. The shot wasn't that clear since the "Alpha" Megazord was attempting to battle the monster with a sword, similar to the one the monster carried. It was a strange battle, like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean, without the Pirates…or the Caribbean as a matter of fact…

The blue ranger tapped a few things on his consol as well before holding down a white button, "Nova, Omega, we're going to blast him, get away from there."

The "Alpha" Megazord took a few good blows before stumbling backwards a few steps, _"He'll just keep deflecting your shots." _Replied Nova

"_Maybe not," _Sam interjected, _"I think I have an idea, and we're going to have to work together if we want it to work…ALL of us."_

Commander Tate and Kat listened to the conversations over the airwaves like they did every battle to judge what the situation was. Sky smiled, the trip had done something good for the Omega ranger, just like he remembered. With some luck, it would rub off on Nova and the current B Squad, maybe bringing the seven of them to actually work like one team, instead of two separate ones. Kat smiled at the revelation as well, that was the Omega she remembered.

"_Omega, what are you talking about?" _the yellow ranger asked only to be cut of by Commander Tate's voice as he chimed in, _"We have never-" _

"Omega is right, you guys have been acting separately since Nova and Omega first arrived here, you need to work together if you expect to beat this guy," Tate insisted already impressed by the sudden attitude adjustment Sam had made...even though it wasn't so sudden.

"_Kat, all the Zords are compatible right?" _

Kat paused for a minute before answering, "Well in theory they should be..."

"_I mean my Zord connected with the old…" _Sam soon realized he was saying too much, "_uh…thing and they were built years apart…_"

"_Omega, where are you going with this?" _

"I know where he's going," Kat replied briefly glancing at Commander Tate who was trying to hide a small smile as she tapped some buttons and adjusted a dial, "But Sam, you need to understand your Zord is built differently than the others. It was designed to be compatible with most other Zords, Nova's isn't as interchangeable. The seven of you will fit together, but it won't be a smooth transformation," she explained, "and your coordination might be a bit off too…"

"_But it will give us a substantial power boost," _the pink ranger finished.

"Exactly,"

Though she didn't like the idea of the two team's Zords combining into one, Nova didn't see much of an option as she flicked her wrist, barely deflecting a fireball the giant turtle had suddenly conjured up from thin air. She turned to Sam, "_Wouldn't it be a foolish idea to try and combine two Megazords together that have never been combined before in the middle of a fight?" _

"_I agree with Nova," _the blue ranger interjected, "_the theory is a good one, but we have completely different controls and manoeuvres for each Zord. Combining them is not worth the risk of them screwing us up." _

"_EXCUSE ME?" _Nova snapped.

"_You might not believe it, but we are quite familiar with the manoeuvres that the Delta Squad Megazord pilots are trained to use," _Sam shot back then bit his bottom lip to prevent him for relapsing from his new found knowledge to what he had been before the "special" mission.

"_Alright Omega, I'm willing to give it a try," _came the suddenly shy sounding voice of the pink ranger.

A slash from the monster's sword sent the Delta Squad Megazord sprawling backwards into a skyscraper, crumpling it. Tate winced as he watched it on the screen…repairing that was going to be hard to justify in the budget…

"_I'm in for this time," _the red ranger concurred as he rubbed the top of his helmet nervously, _"if Nova is." _

"_Sir I don't-" _the green ranger began but was abruptly cut off.

Commander Tate rubbed his forehead; this was taking too long, he began in a sickeningly slow pace the ended at a yelling tone "Rangers! I am going to say this once to you! SHUT UP AND DO YOUR JOB!" he hollered at the communicator, then stepped back, "this is getting ridiculous…."

Nova and Sam stared down at their communication panel…well they hadn't expected that rebuttal…

The B-Squad raised their eyebrows behind their helmets…they were really in for it when they got to the base…

"_Alright, we'll get out of the way_," Nova snapped obviously pissed at the situation and more so at the ranger sitting a few feet away from her for suggesting the stupid idea in the first place, _"but I am not combining our Zords when it is potentially dangerous."_

Commander Tate let out a sigh of relief, "Well that awkward agreement only took a year to accomplish…" he moaned.

Kat smirked, "I must say, your tactics are much different from Cruger's…" she raised her eyebrows, "Shut up and do your job?"

Tate rolled his eyes and placed his hands on his hips, "Well you know it seemed like a good idea... it's about time at least one of them learned working together might be a good idea, and luckily for Sam he had very good teachers. Now if the others weren't so slow..."

"And how long did it take you guys to get Sam integrated till he felt like part of a team?" Kat pointed out.

Tate sighed, "You know I wonder some days why Cruger placed me here with these rangers and put Sydney on the IO base with a team that's not as dysfunctional."

Kat smiled, "Sky, it's really simple to see…he knows you can handle them."

* * *

End of Chapter 1

Please Review ** Ω **


	2. Chapter 2

The seven rangers filed into the Command Center, none looking Commander Tate directly in the eye as they did. They had apprehended the criminal…but after his outburst at them they knew it wasn't going to be a very big victory in the big scheme of things.

Sam and Nova were still slightly disoriented having been jumping through time for the last few months (Sam had gone back to the Dino Thunder time period as well as 2025) and come back only a few minutes after they'd left. All Sam really wanted right now was a nap…but after how strong Nova had opposed his idea of combining the Zords, he knew she wasn't going to be too happy with him for the next little while and a nap was out of the question.

Tate had his thumb and index fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as he paced, "Alright, I understand friction," he sighed not looking at the rangers, "and I understand how silver and gold badges don't normally get along however-" he put his hands behind his back and addressed the young man dressed in the green ranger officer uniform, "gold badges do not normally stay in one area for more than the duration of their specified mission. Omega and Nova rangers are currently assigned to the Earth Branch indefinitely…your attitudes towards them need to change, they are rangers who went through the same training as you, the only thing that makes them different is they have more of it and training with special morphers-"

"Commander Tate, there is more to it than that" Nova interrupted angrily but Tate turned to her and continued.

"And Nova ranger," he said in a slow voice, "When I first met you, you seemed like a very smart young girl and very grateful for the rangers that Earth had at the **time.** I am unsure what has changed since then, maybe you wanted to make a good impression, I'm not sure, but you need to accept the fact that your badge and suit is a different colour does not make you superior to your fellow rangers in anyway but rank. You also need to recall that rank is given to a person so they can lead, not push others around."

"You know if it hadn't been for me you'd be toast right now?"

Sam winced as he realized exactly what the two were referring to. He placed his hand on Nova's shoulder and tugged on it, causing her to turn and face him, "Nova, don't you think-" her face softened slightly at his protest, and then hardened again when Tate spoke.

"It's fine Omega," Tate replied looking away from Nova and back over to the other rangers, "I was impressed with the idea of you combining your Zords and not impressed with not only the hesitation but the argument that resulted. Until you can learn better teamwork I'm suspending the five of your morphers. Omega and Nova ranger are out of my jurisdiction since their morphers are assigned by recommendation of Supreme Commander Cruger. Nova ranger, do not expect to have an active morpher when I bring up this incident with Cruger, he has given you enough leeway with it as it is and you do not have a good track record with him. Now hand them over."

Each officer pulled out their morphers, looked down at it sadly, and then handed it over to Kat who collected them then took them over to her work area.

"And what about Omega?" the young man in a blue hoodie and brown pants pointed out, "what about him? Doesn't he get his morpher taken away?"

Tate shook his head as a small smile appeared on his face, "He's proven to me in the past that he can work well with a team. He'll be kept on active duty."

Sam nodded in the affirmative but glanced around briefly to see he was clearly getting the evil eye from the other rangers. Even the red ranger, who was more level headed then his multicolored counterparts…this was really going to make them like him more…oh brother…

"You're dismissed, except Omega, I want to speak to you further."

A rather disappointed round of "yes sir" from the B-Squad ranger and a huff from Nova who all exited the room left Sam, Tate, and Kat all in the Command Center, alone. Kat wandered over and gave Sam a pat on the shoulder.

"Good to have you back Sam," she whispered fondly before returning back to her consol, the image of the old S.W.A.T flyers reappearing, she then exited the room, carrying the morphers.

Tate relaxed noticeably, "How was your adventure?"

Sam let out a weak laugh, "Just that," he replied, "an adventure." He paused for a minute, "have you known-"

Tate nodded.

"Oh, so the fact I was chosen as Omega-"

"No coincidence," Tate finished, he then returned to his more formal stance, "Sam, you do realize you and Nova are now the only active rangers at the base and since I hope to get Nova's morpher suspended as well you will be the only active ranger for the Earth branch."

Sam let out a sigh, "Yeah…so much for a vacation…"

Tate nodded, "I understand things must be a little strange right now, but hopefully we can get all of the rangers working together…then, I promise, you can have a few weeks off, no interruptions."

Sam looked up at Tate and smiled, "I'd really like that."

"Sam I know that you are willing to work with a team and work with Nova, so I need you to help me out with this," Tate sighed, "as you know there was friction on the team in 2025, yet it was never as bad as this for so long. All ranger teams I have commanded before this haven't even had friction close to this magnitude. You were part of the problem, what changed your mind? What will change Nova's?"

Sam looked down at the morpher on his wrist, and then closed his eyes. What exactly had made him change his mind? Where was the exact moment? He opened his eyes and looked around the Command Center, "I guess…when you guys came in and helped me after I'd been such a jerk. You did something I on my own couldn't…put Nova in a similar situation and even she'll have to admit it." He thought for another moment "That's all I can really say sir, I'm not sure about the other rangers…what made your team finally work together?"

Tate paused then admitted, "I guess I have a bit of remembering to do myself…thank you Omega, you're dismissed."

Meanwhile in the recreation center B-Squad were sprawled. The blue and pink rangers seated on one couch, the green and yellow across from them. The red ranger was perched on the top of the sofa that seated the pink and blue rangers. There were all letting off steam by bitterly complaining.

"It's stupid, those gold badges just come in and take over…and why the hell isn't he taking Omega's morpher? He gets one good 'teamwork' idea and suddenly he's Tate's golden boy," the yellow ranger snapped as she attempted to hurtle a ball of Kleenex the blue ranger, only succeeding in causing it to travel halfway then falling to the ground, "what does he mean in the past?"

The red ranger sighed, "Hey, Mimi, you've got to calm down, I'm not impressed with his decision, but Commander Tate was a great ranger both blue and red, he has a reason for doing what he does."

"He's probably just upset," the pink ranger point out as she braided her black ponytail, "I mean Nova isn't usually that bad, she was acting today as though she hadn't slept in a week or something."

"But that doesn't give her permission to be such a bitch," the green ranger mumbled.

"Chris, I know you don't like her, but she is ranked higher than us, we do have to give her some respect," the pink ranger sighed, "I still think Omega was onto something with the Zord thing though, it would have been nice if she'd agreed to it."

"Aw stop it Beth," Mimi said making a gagging motion with her hand and mouth, "don't defend them."

The blue ranger flipped through his magazine that was aimlessly sitting in his lap. He folded the corner of a page he was on and closed it, placing it on the nearby coffee table, he addressed Mimi when he spoke "Personally I don't even want to look at Omega or Nova right, no matter what Tate, Kat, Drew or Beth say. Tate is doing what he can, there's hope for Omega maybe, if Tate really sees something in him, but Nova is too set in her ideas to change."

Drew adjusted his red trimmed uniform and stood up momentarily before sitting back down, "Maybe you're right Andre, but we need to try, our careers as rangers depend on it."

The five rangers sat in silence. That was it. Get along with Nova and Omega or be dismissed from duty…neither option was looking pretty, but the latter was much worse in the long run.

"You don't think he'd replace us with C-Squad, do you?" Chris asked wrinkling his nose, "that one girl…what's her name? Jubilee? She's kind of hot, and that's the whole team's only redeeming quality."

"Obviously because all the good rangers are put into the gold badge program,"

Five heads snapped to the door to see Nova standing there, arms folded across her chest. She gave the rangers doubtful looks and shook her head.

"What do you want Nova?" Andre said as curtly as he could manage.

"I'm looking for Commander Delgado, I was told she was here…obviously she isn't," Nova stated simply.

"Why would Commander Delgado even be in the Earth Branch, isn't she stationed on Mars?" Beth asked curiously as she finished her braid, "and as far as I know there's no reason for her to visit."

"Her and Tate served on the same ranger team," Nova responded then added somewhat awkwardly, "Apparently they're…friends. I need to speak with her about a…" she hesitated for a moment, "possible transfer from this horrid little base."

"We'll be crushed to see you go," Chris snorted.

Nova rolled her eyes, "Me too," she snapped her voice dripping with sarcasm as she turned around and exited the room.

Five pairs of eyes glared at her back as she left. If looks could kill she'd be dead on the floor…and the rangers would have some very awkward explaining to do. Though they weren't too sure if Commander Tate would be too upset if something of that nature happened…

"You know who she sounds like? That female Borg from Star Trek: Voyager," Drew decided, scratching his nose and turning back to the group of rangers in the room, "she even does the eyebrow thing every once in a while…"

"You think she has any emotions?" Andrea asked as he rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie, "maybe she's genetically altered and she just doesn't have any…"

"Obviously she has a few," Beth pointed out securing the end of her braid with an elastic band before swinging her head so it swished behind her, nearly whacking Drew in the side, "Don't you ever notice how she drags Omega around everywhere? And in the Command Center when she was having it out with Tate, he put his hand on her shoulder, poof, for two seconds there she looked human."

"Are they going out or something? I mean…they do share quarters…" Mimi pointed out as she glanced down at her nails and furrowed her brow as she saw all the gunk under them.

Chris shook his head, "nah, we just ran out of rooms, I'm amazed they didn't make Drew and Omega share instead."

"Cause they'd probably kill each other," Andre laughed, "I could just see it!" he hopped to his feet and manoeuvred so he was in front of the other rangers. He stood up as straight as he could with his hands clasped behind his back, "Now Cadet Williams I have something to speak to you about."

Drew smirked; he knew where this was going. He jumped to his feet as well and crouched down slightly to give the impression Andre was about a foot taller than him, when in reality he was a bit shorter than Drew. He had his hand in an old fashioned naval salute, "Yes Commander Tate?"

"I have a new roommate for you," Andre announced in as a serious voice as he could muster while pulling Chris out from his seat, "this is Omega ranger."

"Hey there!" Drew said in a goofball voice waving hyperbolically, "I'm Drew, what's you name?"

Chris turned his nose up and flicked his head back in a pompous way, "I am Omega ranger, I don't have a name, I'm too important for trivial things like that."

The young woman decked in her pink uniform looked around quickly," Guys stop it! What if Tate walks in?" Beth protested half heartedly as she giggled at their antics.

"Or worse, Nova again!" Mimi exclaimed as she flicked her head up in a similar fashion to Chris, "I much superior to all of you and walk around with a stick up my ass all the time," she mocked as she pranced around the room, "I'm so great I don't have to listen to you!" she lightly pushed Andre in the middle of the chest.

Andre took the hint and flailed as if trying to keep his balance before tumbling backwards onto the couch and almost onto Beth who scrunched herself against the edge of the couch so his head landed at the tips of her toes. Beth laughed before grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him back up into a sitting position.

"Why thank you Dr. Manx," he said shaking his head in an attempt to get his hair to fall back into place, but it had a major case of static electricity and was sticking up in all directions, "now Cadet Williams, you and your roommate must get along, understood?"

"Why should I treat him like my equal?" Chris exclaimed in mock disgust, sticking his tongue out at Drew, "when I'm obviously better? My fighting is better, my badge is a better colour, I have a codename as opposed to a real one and I smell better to boot."

Drew frowned, "You can insult my fighting, my name, and my badge, but no one, I mean no one insults my body odour! I challenge you!"

Chris laughed at Drew's antics, it was rare the red ranger went all out in his comedy, he quickly resumed character, "Oh right, like a silver badge could beat me! And I can't even believe you'd think-" he was about to continue when Drew pounced on him, knocking him onto the couch.

"I win!" he announced happily raising his hands in the air for victory then turned to Beth to see if she was still laughing.

She wasn't.

In fact she was waving her hand frantically back and forth around the area of her neck, Andre mimicking the motion. The universal sign for "cut it out". They appeared slightly paler.

The signs all indicated someone very important had entered the room. The idea did not appeal to the three rangers in front of them. Mimi was wincing.

"Tate?" she asked not daring to look around.

Andre and Mimi shook their heads.

"Oh my god it isn't Delgado is it?" Chris gasped bringing a hand to his mouth…dear god; he'd had one class with her when she'd substituted at the academy and when she was mad she was scary.

"Guess again,"

The three rangers turned around and let out a sigh of relief when they discovered that it was in fact Kat shaking her head disapprovingly. The feline doctor had her hands placed firmly on her hips while she did it. They noticed she was no longer carrying the morphers, meaning she had secured them somewhere in the building. There was a very small chance they'd be getting them back before Tate gave the order to them, no sympathy from her.

"Dr. Manx? Uh…" Mimi began struggling for a reasonable excuse, but didn't come up with anything whatsoever, "Hi?"

"I suggest if you wish to do that, you do it in a secure room," Kat said, her eyes narrowing, "with attitudes like that, your morphers are not going to be reactivated anytime soon. I came to see if you were alright…you appear to be."

"We're not fine! Those guys! They're so…infuriating!" Andre insisted, "Commander Tate seems to be harping on us for not trying to make an effort to be 'friends' with the gold badges when they have in fact made it impossible to even get a word in without having an insult slung at you. It's not our fault they're unwilling to work with regular badges."

Kat shook her head and her voice softened, "He's really frustrated with your lack of progress, guys…" she said dropping her hands to her sides, "Omega is willing, Nova not so much…but one out of two isn't bad, enough to get your morphers reinstated." She paused for a moment then turned to leave, "Lisa and Sam," she added at the end as she headed back out into the hallway.

There was silence.

"Lisa and Sam? Who are they?"

Shrugs followed.

They sat in awkward silence yet again.

Drew collapsed onto the couch a hand placed on his forehead. So many thoughts were running through his head. What was he going to do? He was supposed to be the red ranger, the one in charge, the one who knew what to do, but he didn't appear to have any better abilities at figuring this out than his team mates. While he was willing to accept help from Nova and Omega if the situation was dire, he didn't particularly like either ranger. Not enough to try and be friends. He rolled over allowing Mimi to sit on the edge of the couch.

Mimi patted him on the shoulder, "Drew, this isn't your fault, you've tried to give them opportunities," she reassured, "they're just not listening."

"But Tate will-"

He was cut off by a relatively annoying chirping noise that seemed to come out of nowhere. The rangers looked around in alarm. Chris gave Beth the evil eye…it was coming from her direction…specifically from her…

"Didn't I tell you to never set that stupid alarm?" Mimi said as she pushed up the pink ranger's uniform to reveal a beeping, and blinking digital watch at was currently displaying 13:00 in bright green letters. The pink ranger flushed as she tugged her uniform back down to cover it.

"I don't know how to turn it off…or get it off military time…but I need a watch, I go crazy without one," she muttered, "it's lunch time anyways. Let's go."

The B-Squad nodded. Anything was better staying around here and wallowing in self pity. And maybe, if they were just lucky enough, they wouldn't have to see Omega or Nova in the cafeteria…

But hey since all Cadets ate in the cafeteria…what were the chances of that?

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	3. Chapter 3

Alright, time for another talk...

I KNOW there are people who are reading this story thanks to the lovely stats setting on the account...it's over 100

So why so little reviews? You don't need to log in, just click the little button and critique. The few people who have reviewed have been very helpful and I thank them ☻

For others though, I'd prefer a few more reviews...Please?

Anywho...in this one another former B-Squad ranger shows up, hope you enjoy

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When Sam entered the cafeteria he was well aware of the looks Cadets were giving him when they thought he wasn't looking. Cold, hard, they were angry at him.

Word had spread rapidly about the revocation of the B-Squad's morphers and the threat Tate had made against Nova. While happy that Nova would be punished for her attitude, they were upset that their colleagues had had to pay for their "mistakes" and even more upset that the current rangers active were both gold badges. He looked down at the card he had to swipe to get his food, and then up briefly to see the entire room's voices had dropped to whispers, except from the E-Squad who seemed not to be concerned with the current state of affairs and more interested in the date they had planned for a movie. He searched the room for Nova, only to find she wasn't there.

Great, he was really alone in a room of people who hated him. He wished he could just teleport out of there, then realized that it would be awkward to explain that, and just plain cowardly.

One group to the side was especially tactless, three young girls, two redhead twins and a blonde girl with curly hair that reminded him vaguely of Sydney. They were not only whispering and giggling, but pointing as well.

He took a deep breath, "What do you want?" he snapped, a small part of his former 'superior' self clicking into place as the group of Cadets he'd been addressing immediately began trying to sound as though they'd been having a riveting conversation about the salad the blonde girl had on her tray.

The conversation in the room immediately became louder and about a myriad of things not discussed before he entered.

His heart fell.

They were all scared of him too.

He didn't feel hungry anymore.

Spending a few months away from having to be the "gold badge" or the "Omega Ranger" and just being Sam had been different. An experience he hadn't had for a while. Even there he'd felt some hostility at first, but once it had gone away he'd gotten comfortable with the situation he'd been in, too comfortable, he missed it greatly. Even the occasional jabs of "Sparky the nightlight" hadn't made him feel unwelcome. He let out moan then it donned on him he must look rather strange standing in the middle of the cafeteria feeling sorry for himself.

As he was about to go get food the conversations in the room became very hushed…either Nova, Tate, or the B-Squad had entered. Judging by the silence it was probably the latter.

"Man I am so upset I used up my food card this morning I could really go for a-" he heard a feminine voice say then abruptly stop, "uh, what's going on?" he knew that voice…that was Mimi.

"Aw man-"

"Word sure travels fast…"

Sam just shook his head, turned on his heel and forced his food card into the yellow ranger's hand, "Take this, I'm not hungry," he muttered as he brushed passed them and out of the cafeteria.

Mimi stared down at the card in her hand, eyebrows raised. She turned it over to see that it in fact did not have any stripes on it, indicating it had not yet been used, "Cool," she said, "yeah! Now I get to have lunch."

Chris frowned, "That was unusually nice of him. Come on, let's go sit over there, Beth needed to go get her food card, she said she'd meet us here."

The pink ranger wandered down the hall towards the cafeteria. She saw Omega walking towards her, head down. Not really caring where he was going. He looked so sad. She was about to call something out to him…

But he was gone.

Frowning Beth rubbed her eyes…he was just gone…what the hell?

"Have you seen the Omega Ranger anywhere?"

Beth whirled around to see Commander Delgado wandering down the hallways. She was addressing a young alien with green scaly skin and red eyes when she asked her question, but Beth sort of had the answer. She jogged up to Delgado and gave her a salute. Delgado nodded.

"Yes I have…he was just here a second ago and then I blinked and now he's not there," Beth reported hoping that she didn't sound like a ditz…or worse…insane.

The young woman with long dark brown hair that she wore in a loose bun on top of her head nodded at Beth, no questions about the strange explanation. She bit her bottom lip and looked to the ceiling lights as if they were going to give her an answer to a question she had. Then she shook her head out, causing loose strands of hair to slip out of her hairdo. She nodded at Beth, "Thank you Cadet...uh…wait don't tell me…I know your name…what is it? Are you Himalaya? No…wait…you're Duke! Cadet Duke."

Beth nodded slowly; Commander Delgado sure didn't talk like Commander Tate. In fact…she seemed almost friendly…and a bit like a teenager.

"Sky's told me all about the rangers here…anyways, thanks, I think I know where he is," Delgado said smiling and nodding at the pink ranger who smiled weakly back.

"And uh…Nova Ranger is looking for you,"

"Yeah I know."

Beth raised an eyebrow, "She eats in her room which is that way," she gestured in the opposite direction of where Delgado was going.

She looked back over her shoulder at Beth and smirked, "I know."

With that she walked out of sight. Her next stop was the roof. That was where Sam had gone when he was a little boy and needed to get away from things for a while. That would be where she'd find him.

She laughed when she thought of the look Beth had worn on her face as she attempted to explain where Omega Ranger was without sounding too weird. It was apparent the team (at least the pink ranger) did not know of Sam's genetic abilities. With his training he probably was taught not to rely on them and didn't use them in fights.

Her heart fell as she realized what she was thinking…it was bothering her…

It wasn't that she disliked her job as Commander of the Mars Branch, the rangers were fairly well behaved and the one gold badge she'd been forced to deal with the "Sigma Ranger" had only stuck around for two months before they'd been transferred to another planet. She felt horribly sorry for Sky who had to put up with two of them…well…now one (since Sam had apparently become a lot more bearable). When she'd decided to come to Earth for her yearly visit to the Earth Base, she hadn't expected Sky to greet her with news that Sam had returned and it was now safe to talk to him about it.

It wasn't unwelcome news, just surprising.

She's made a vow fifteen years ago she was going to greet him when he came home, and even without planning it, it appeared she was going to do it on the very day.

Turning a corner she nearly ran into door she hadn't remembered being there. Grumbling to herself she pushed it open and made her way up the stairs that led to the roof of the base. It helped she was on the top floor and not the bottom or she'd have a long ways to go.

What was she going to say? When the rangers had vowed to welcome Sam in fifteen years they hadn't realize how strange their circumstances would be. Once Sam had been chosen for gold badge training he'd changed into one of them. While Bridge (now a Commander as well) had certain ties with how gold badges were trained, he had no control over the feeling of superiority the group of them felt. While gold badges worked well with gold badges and regular badges well with regular badges, seldom had they fit together.

Never had they fit together as Sam had with 2025's B-Squad.

It had been years since she'd seen Sam…since anyone had seen Sam out of the 2025's B-Squad (excluding Sky who needed to see him at work). They hadn't parted on bad terms or anything…they just hadn't talked in a long time.

Her shoes clicked as she headed up the stairs.

Unlike all the other places in S.P.D. the stairs up to the roof hadn't been refurnished or changed much since the base had become operational. The steps were cement with cracks and chips forming in them. Rarely were they used…The back area they were in was cold, the heating ignored and the only sign of colour was a small pinkish stain on the wall where it had been rumoured that Boom had been practicing with one of Kat's inventions and it hadn't gone too well. That had been seven years ago and the stain sill wasn't gone.

When she reached the top she pushed open the metal door to the roof and smiled when she saw a familiar figure leaning on the small ledge that made sure no one fell off unless they were actually trying to or just being stupid. She walked over to him. He didn't even turn to her, leading her to believe something was really troubling.

"Hey," she said softly as the young man turned to her, eyes wide.

"Z?" he asked in confusion, his eyes searching for some sort of obvious answer as to why she was currently on the Earth Base "how did you-"

She ushered Sam into a hug, "Come here," she said wrapping her arms around him, "so? How was your mission?"

Sam hugged her back and rested his chin on the top of her head, "I can't believe you guys knew this whole time and never told me."

Z laughed, "You have to learn a few things on your own you know," she said as she pulled back from the hug to look at him, "we wanted to tell you but knew we couldn't. Sky tells me he can see a change already."

Sam's face became slightly sadder as he nodded, turning back to the city briefly he sighed longingly "Things aren't as nice here. You guys were much easier to get along with, even if you did make fun of me."

"We never made fun of you!" Z responded adamantly at the accusation.

"Does Sparky the nightlight ring a bell?"

It was hard to notice but her cheeks flushed a shade darker, had he actually heard that? "Well that was Syd, and she only said it once when she was kind of upset," she replied trying to cover up it up.

"Whatever, you still didn't defend me or anything…" he pouted slightly more to annoy her than actually being upset.

"Well about the other thing," Z said clearing her throat and attempting to get away from the nightlight conversation that was slowly forming, "you're just going to have to work to change that," Z said simply, "now come on, I can't talk to Sky right now cause he said he had some things to do, so I'm going to go visit Jack and Ally, let's go."

Sam laughed, "Z…I'm on duty…"

"You're with a commanding officer," Z stated simply as she tugged him by the arm, "anyways, I've heard your partner, Nova is looking for me right now to ask about a possible transfer…ugh…no offence cause I know you're probably friends, but I don't have a good reason to say no, so right now I'd rather just not run into her."

"She's nice;" Sam defended then looked down, "just a bit mixed up. In our training we were taught that we were superior…it's what all gold badges believe…she just is less willing to accept they might have been wrong," he paused for a minute as they approached the metal door, "and cranky because she's been jumping all over the timeline looking for me…and uh, before we go anywhere, can I get changed? I've sort have been wearing yet not wearing this exact uniform for the past few months and it's my old training one…"

Z nodded, "Sure and then forget about these problems and come on, Jack should still be at the school, it doesn't get let out for another few hours."

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Me being a pest again.

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	4. Chapter 4

Well…I did get one more reviewer…that's progress right? Ω

Any Omega Ranger fans, tell ur friends : )

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_Meanwhile, on IO…_

Sydney let out a yawn as she looked over the containment cards that Headquarters had sent over to IO for temporary storage. The security containment area had been randomly malfunctioning in the maximum security area allowing certain criminals to escape their containment cards. None had gotten far since the HQ of SPD was very tightly secure, but containment cards were being distributed among the planets for security.

Most of them were fairly old criminals that the officers from Earth had captured over the years she observed as she handed the stack off to a young woman with her yellow hair in two short pigtails on either side of her head and a yellow gem in the middle of her forehead. She was the new yellow ranger of IO's A-Squad but Sydney could never remember her name and often just called her "Cadet."

"Cadet, take these to Dr. Quinn," she sighed, scratching her head tiredly, she'd just had to deal with a rather pissed off civilian who had come to complain about SPD and was not in a great mood that the front of his store had been destroyed when the rangers had attempted to catch a petty thief "then you need to help the others clean the Zords, that incident with the store today was inexcusable…"

"Yes Commander Drew," the young woman sighed sadly, bowing her head as she scuffled out of the Command Center and down the hall.

Sydney looked around a few times before pulling a paperback book out of her back pocket and settled down on a technician's chair hoping to finish the next chapter before trouble struck…

She didn't.

The yellow ranger (whose name happened to be Lola) took the cards to Dr. Quinn's office yet the Doctor was nowhere to be found. She'd grown annoyed of the constant protests of the prisoners to their confinement. Only one was quite, the containment card of a young girl who was sitting and petting a doll that appeared to have no hair and a button eye. She studied the card for a few moments in which the girl turned to her briefly.

"What do you want?" she snapped in a voice with a slight British accent.

Lola drew back from the card slightly before putting it down on the table, "You look awfully young." She said cocking her head to the side.

"Well I'm not," the girl replied turning up her nose, "I've been stuck in here for 15 years with lots of time to think."

"Oh…sorry?" Lola offered unsure of what to say.

The little girl turned back to her as she continued to pet the doll, "Oh, don't be," she replied, an evil smirk forming on her face, "I know how to pass the time."

Then the little girl drew back her hand and then leaned forewords as if attempting to touch through the containment card. There was a flash of pinkish light before Lola found herself flat on the floor ,the entire stack of containment cards ripped from her hands by the little girl who stood before her.

"But how-" Lola began.

"Don't worry about how," she smiled sweetly as she snapped the tops off of a few of the cards causing the contained criminals to appear before the confused yellow ranger, "just worry about what I'm…not, we're going to do."

_Back on Earth…_

Tate let out a loud groan as he sat down in his office chair, tapping in the code to connect with Supreme Commander Cruger. Omega thought he needed a nap? Well Sky was pretty sure he needed it more.

The screen in front of him with an S.P.D. screensaver rang as it attempted to establish a connection with Cruger's secretary's computer. Digging into his top desk drawer he pulled out a small container of Advil, screwed the cap off and popped two of the brownish pills into his mouth. He next downed a glass of water before putting the container on the top of his desk beside his computer. He'd never had headaches this bad where he was a ranger…and that's when he was getting kicked, punched and blasted in the head on a daily basis. He was amazed Cruger managed it so well. He'd never appeared to have headaches or anything…

The screen emitted a clicking noise and flickered so there was a pretty young alien woman with choppy purple hair and small wings on her back resembling those of what a young child would wear on Halloween. She smiled.

"Ah Commander Tate," she said grinning even wider to reveal a set of pearly white teeth, "so good to hear from you. Supreme Commander Cruger mentioned he expected a call from you sometime today. I just didn't expect it to be now…"

Sky nodded in hopes of being transferred to Cruger, but instead the secretary kept talking.

"Anyways, he's in a meeting right now which should be out in a few minutes if you'd like to stay on the line," she paused as she picked up a nail file and winked at him, "So how are things on Earth these days? Any invasions? Escaped criminals?"

Sky raised his eyebrows at the absurdity of the question, "Uh…no, things are fine…how long do you think Commander Cruger will be?"

"About ten minutes, he's meeting the Commanders from the Pegasus Galaxy, apparently they're having trouble with a weird group of aliens that eat people" the secretary said as she crossed her legs flirtatiously to reveal she was wearing a fairly elaborate skirt with glitter decorating most of it, for some reason all Sky could think about was how her voice resembled that of Janine from the _Ghostbusters_ movies "so things are alight? Good, are you still an active ranger? I can never remember…" she said batting her eyelashes at the screen.

"Uh…sort of…yes I have an active morpher, I've not had to use it in sometime" Sky replied getting slightly more disturbed by her body language as the conversation progressed, and the fact she could never remember if **he **was an active ranger when there were thousands of rangers all over the galaxy.

"I think it's amazing what rangers do, going around in spandex, saving the world, it's soooo sexy," she began to fluff up her hair to try and emphasis her point, she also stuck out her lower lip.

And now she was pouting and preening at him…

"I think I'll try back in a few minutes," Sky said trying to not sound as disgusted as he felt as he moved to end the connection.

"No! Wait!" the secretary began but she was cut off and the screen went back to the S.P.D. screensaver

Sky looked at his computer screen then down at his desk multiple times before shaking his head and shuddering slightly. He had to talk to Cruger about considering getting a new secretary, one that didn't attempt to flirt with him every time he called, though explaining that to Cruger would be awkward at best.

He then looked down at the computer…if he had a few minutes…he could make another call…one that might help get the rangers together. Sam had inadvertently given him the idea with the "What made your team finally work together?" question. It was a good idea…yet…

He took a deep breath as he tapped a few more buttons on his computer, searching through an S.P.D. digital directory till he found the name he needed. He paused and looked at the name for a while before sighing.

"Am I really that mean?" he asked himself aloud glancing around the room for a sign. The bottle of Advil caught his eye, which made up his mind right away "Yes," he decided as his lips contorted into a smirk, "Yes I am."

He punched the address into his computer and waited as it rang…he was going to get his rangers to work together…even if he had to call in some outside help to get the job done. If he needed to he could upgrade C-Squad temporarily while the others attempted to work out their problems, or asked for some temporary transfers from Venus…no one ever attacked Venus on a regular basis anyways…too hot…

It was four rings before he heard the familiar click of the computer connecting. On the screen was an all too familiar face.

"_Sky Tate, hey! Haven't heard from you in a while… your rangers finally ready?"_

So he wanted to see if they were ready? Oh he'd find out, "One I think is, on the other hand, I think the other six could use some extra training in the art of teamwork," Tate replied still smirking, "We have gold badges we need them to get along with, are you up to the challenge?"

"_Don't worry, after I'm through with them they'll be best friends whether they like it or not," _responded the voice, _"Worked for you didn't it? Not that I can say that was entirely my doing..." _

Sky laughed and nodded, "Yes it did. As I said, I have one I think is ready, if he meets your approval can you send him back? I'm going to be short all my rangers otherwise."

"_No can do, everything is a team effort, one can't pass and not the others… send them over ASAP" _the voice replied, _"I know I'm not normally this brief but after that last team of rangers, I need to get this place cleaned up, nearly destroyed my house!"_

With that the transmission ended a bit abruptly.

Now it was time to call back Cruger and hopefully convince him to take away Nova's morpher temporarily and hire a new secretary…preferably a married one…

As he dialled the address for Cruger's secretary he was suddenly very excited about his decision…why hadn't he thought of this a year earlier?

In the training room two levels down Nova stood fiddling with the program controls. She was seriously considering making the monsters look like B-Squad rangers, it would at least be a way to let off some steam. She was amazed she hadn't thrown something at the green one long before now. He seemed to be the worst out of the five of them.

"They don't know anything about me," Nova grumbled as she slammed the control panel shut and flicked the switch to the "on" position, "thinking I actually wanted to get transferred to Mars. I hate Mars…"

She thought Tate was bad, but knew her and Delgado would get along about as well as…well…as well as two things that would never go together no matter how hard you tried to get them to fit. She'd heard how disappointed Sam had been when Delgado (or as she'd discovered he calls her "Z") hadn't been there to see him. She'd heard Delgado was on base and had been hoping to find her first to give him a surprise. He'd have loved it…

She hadn't seen him in months…or what had been to her months as she jumped around the timeline, and after being so short with him earlier in the Command Center, she thought he'd maybe forgive her and remember she **could** be sensitive to what others were feeling…the odd time. She wanted him happy; screw the other rangers, who cared about them anyways? If her partner and roommate wasn't happy then nothing else mattered to her.

But her searching for the Commander had just made her believe that she was probably being avoided, which made sense. If Delgado had been looking for her, she'd probably be hiding somewhere.

The blue training room instantly changed into a rooftop simulation, a favourite of Commander Tate's, and Nova had to admit it was tricky on the higher levels, but really easy on the lower ones…for her anyways, "S.P.D. Emergency" Immediately her suit and helmet formed into place and she stood on the rooftop scanning the area.

They just didn't get it. She was supposed to be in charge of a team. She had a team. A team of gold badges that she led and being assigned to Earth meant having to leave all of them except Sam. She missed the other girls and even guys who understood her line of thinking and accepted her as leader instead of Tate who seemed to believe that since she was on a different planet she needed to give that up. Also, having the nerve to threaten to get her morpher taken away from her until she learned "teamwork"…it wasn't her fault the other rangers were unwilling to work with gold badges.

She didn't see any criminals appearing in the simulation yet, making her wonder what exactly she had done to the control panel. She'd thought she'd made the simulation so that it was intended for a single ranger…

A loud clank echoed behind her and she spun around to see that she hadn't actually broken anything and a small group of Krybots were attempting to be stealthy and sneak up behind her…but one had tripped over a simulated bucket that was randomly there and thus alerting her to their presence.

She reached for her morpher and powered it up, "Blast Mode," she announced and clicked the handle back into placed before pulling her hand back, then pushing it forwards and a fuchsia coloured blast was emitted from it.

She smirked behind her helmet as she heard the familiar sound of the blast hitting the metal Krybots, either sending them backwards or causing them to just explode. When she tilted her head to the side and squinted she could even bring herself to imagine the face of the green B-Squad ranger for a brief second before the one she was looking at head exploded. Yup…this was great stress relief already.

The remaining charged at her. She ran and jumped in the air, gaining considerable height do to her suit's enhancements and bringing her leg back into proper position she landed the flying kick into the stomach of another Krybot. It flew backwards, and was out of the game while the rest of the group decided to converge on her. Un-phased she turned to them.

Those stupid rangers, how could they dare think they were in the same league as her and Omega, and how dare they think that every problem within S.P.D. was caused by gold badges. Silver badges weren't so great. The A-Squad of 2025 had been regular badges and had managed to infiltrate S.P.D. even after they'd turned. If it had been a gold badge base they never would have been able to go on like that for so long. And the rangers of the time period were terrible till Omega came and saved them, and even Nova had to save them at the end of it. Regular badges simply had a sketchy past when it came to things like security and the selection of rangers.

Gold badges didn't and that was that.

Grabbing onto the chest area of one of the Krybots, Nova lifted it up over her head and hurtled it at another one, sending them both sprawling. A back kick into the side of another Krybot, then flipping to nail a second in the head secured her victory over the level as there were only five left which she took care of using "Hyper Mode" on the Nova morpher. She'd never admit openly she had a somewhat morbid fascination with the beating up of Krybots and pretending they were people she knew.

She looked at her time that was displayed on the wall in big red digital numbers…five minutes and twenty-six seconds…she was getting better, then again, she was always faster when she was mad.

"_Preceding to Next Level of Simulation" _the computer voice announced as the rooftop dissipated as she found herself inside a warehouse.

She gritted her teeth together; she had a lot more steam to let off "Bring it on," she growled through her helmet, "I'm ready."

…

By now Tate had managed to get through to Cruger, and had received an apology from the blushing secretary who had felt very guilty about how she'd reacted even though that was how she always reacted. It took Sky six minutes before he could convince her that it was alright and he just wanted to speak to Cruger. When she finally transferred him Tate went over the details of the situation, the return of Nova and Omega, the continued bitterness between rangers.

"_And what do you need my help for?" _

"I've temporarily suspended their morphers until they can work as a team again. I am sending them to get the training required to get them special weapon and tactics, if they can pass that, then I am confident this won't be a problem. But I can't suspend Nova's morpher without your permission."

"_You can suspend her morpher for a week unless you reinstate it before then," _Cruger informed him, _"Anytime after that I don't believe we can spare having all Earth rangers inactive, if the situation changes, contact me again." _

Though it wasn't exactly what he wanted, it was close enough that it didn't bother him too much.

"_How's Sam doing on his mission, have you heard from him?"_

Tate nodded, "He's returned safely and I do not feel I need to suspend his morpher since he has a few months of training to work on a team from…well…twenty years ago…"

Cruger smiled, _"Understood, I'd be interested in speaking with him when all of this gets cleared up, Cruger out."_

The screen went back to the screensaver as Cruger ended the connection. He had Nova's morpher suspended…he just hoped a week was enough time. He pulled out his badge and flicked it to communication mode, "Kat, you have permission to cut off the signal from the morphing grid to Nova's morpher. Then please find her and collect it by order of Supreme Commander Cruger."

He could almost see Kat's smirk even though she was nowhere nearby_ "Understood,"_

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	5. Chapter 5

Look, I was asked about ship earlier and forgot to answer the question… so here it is…

The story is kind of supposed to focus around Sam, I just need to build the other characters up as well to give it a storyline to follow. The 2025 B-Squad are supposed to be supporting characters, so I don't plan on going all romantic on people. If there is any romance it'll probably involve Omega and someone else.

Thank you for your time…on with the story…

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"Alright now that we've gotten the lab cleaned up from Jake's attempt to see if hydrogen is flammable…" Jack muttered angrily as he wasted most of his time sweeping up glass from the container the young man had shattered and caused some student's nearby food to get imbedded into the nearby wall, he was amazed everyone still had their eyebrows and vowed to make sure he studied the handout he gave everyone to see what had happened to mix the substances up "can anyone here tell me what the four states of matter are?"

The classroom was silent.

Jack let out a groan as he adjusted his black framed glasses, "We went over this last class guys," he sighed as he went over to the blackboard (which was really green…go figure) and pick up a small piece of chalk that was no longer than the size of the average pencil topper.

He wrote in big letters on the board, "Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma" before throwing the piece of chalk onto a small, wobbly, wooden desk that held all of his papers. The students in the all looked at him lazily, dressed on second-hand clothing that didn't fit properly, rolling their eyes, blowing and popping giant pink bubblegum bubble, tapping their fingers, and he was pretty sure a few at the back were sleeping. The papers on the desks were doodled on as opposed to notes being taken and one girl at the front was kicking her backpack in an attempt to silence a weird noise that was emitting from it. He really didn't want to know what it was.

He let out a sigh and perched himself on the edge of his desk, "Alright, what's wrong guys?" A few students raised their eyebrows, one laughed, "You, laughing, what's your name?"

"Oscar,"

"What's so funny?" Jack asked crossing his arms and leaning in to get a better look at the young man who was dressed in baggy black pants with holes in the knees and a green t-shirt with white stripes. His hair was dishevelled and he was unnaturally thin for his height.

"Dude, we're homeless, you think a bit of education is going to help us? Why the hell do I care what the four state of whatever are?" he snapped back in a squeaky voice, judging by the grumbles, quite a few agreed with him, "I don't need education, I need food and shelter, why should I be here when I can be out getting that?"

Jack nodded then looked around the classroom, "First off, you have shelter here, second don't call me dude…Is that how all of you feel? Is that why no one knows this which should be common knowledge? Well except maybe the Plasma part…" There were a few awkward agreements, "Hey! Don't hide it! You don't want to be here you tell me! I won't be offended."

A girl with flaming red hair and weird yellow speckles running down the side of her body spoke up, "I have two kids right now that I've left with my grandmother while I come here. Why shouldn't I be with them?"

Jack slid his glasses off of his nose and threw then onto a nearby student's desk. He hopped to his feet and adjusted his black jacket before addressing them, "Why? Because do you want your life to be theirs?" he snapped pointing out the window before addressing the entire class in his most forceful voice below yelling "Do you want to be stuck on the streets your whole life? Do you want to be criminals? I can tell you for sure, I have friends in S.P.D. they don't take too kindly to that type of behaviour," he let out a sigh as he began pacing, "look, this is more than a school, shelter, books, papers, pencils, hell even food is provided here. This school is supposed to give people who are on the streets a safe haven where they are not judged and where they are helped so they can finish their education. It may not be the nicest place, but without a high school education there are very limited jobs for you, all are minimum wage. With a criminal record, there are no jobs; McDonald's won't even hire you. Do you understand?"

A few students began sitting up a bit straighter, yet a lot were still unconvinced.

"And what street kid has ever done well in New Tech?" Oscar added, "Come on, admit it, Dude-"

"What did I just say about calling me dude?" Jack asked rolling his eyes, it wasn't really that he minded being called it, he just wanted to remind them that he did have some authority here and wasn't someone they could just push around.

"Alright fine," Oscar grumbled rolling his eyes, "Mr. Landors, name one street kid who had ever amounted to anything from New Tech."

"I hope you say me,"

Jack's head snapped to doorway to see a figure standing there. He studied the woman for a second not fully recognizing her in the dim light. When he saw the familiar smile he laughed.

"Z, what are you doing on Earth?" he asked as the woman grinned wickedly then went over to him for a hug.

"Just visiting," she said as she pulled him into a hug, "I haven't been here in ages, things have changed."

Jack grinned as he hopped off his desk as she released him from the hug, "Class, this is Z Delgado, she was a street kid just like all of you, and she is now Commander of the Mars Branch of S.P.D." he announced proudly and gesturing her as if she was being put on display.

Oscar raised his eyebrows…now that was an impressive rank to have…but she was S.P.D. not a good thing to have in a school for street kids who were more often then not criminals in some form of the word.

Another head poked around the doorframe looking in slightly nervously. His dark brown eyes were wide and curious at the set up of the school and the people in it. He'd never been here before…since when had Jack become a teacher anyways?

Jack didn't fail to notice, "Who's this?" he asked raising his eyebrows at Z, "new friend?"

"No silly, it's Sam," she said then looked behind her to see Sam was just standing at the doorway, "well? Come in."

It never failed to amaze her how Sam could change his look from a cocky fighter to a confused and scared little boy in a matter of seconds. In fact, it looked adorable to watch as he walked into the class room, hands in the pockets of his pants looking at the students as though he'd never seen people before.

He wore a different S.P.D. jacket than Jack wasn't used to seeing. It was grey like the other ones with white trim but had a gold badge on the chest and the Greek uppercase symbol of "Omega" on the other side. It was open to reveal a black T-shirt underneath. His morpher was clearly visible on his left arm.

He was in uniform…so that meant he was on duty.

"You're letting S.P.D. in here?" one alien woman snapped angrily, "You call this place safe?"

Sam looked startled at the accusation and held his hands up, "We're not here to arrest anyone," he defended turning to Jack in hopes that he would be able to sooth his student's concerns.

Jack frowned, "Sam? Why **are** you here?"

Sam suddenly felt really guilty about how things had turned out over the years, "I came to visit…" he began then licked his suddenly dry lips "I know now about…things…"

There was an awkward silence as Jack realized what was being implied, "Ooooooh…"

_BRING!!!!!!_

The weird time warp that had seemed to form after Sam had made his statement was shattered by the ringing of an alarm on Jack's desk. It startled the three at the front who glanced down at the small clock it was emitting from as if it was alive and walking away.

"Uh…class dismissed."

The students picked up their bags and papers and exited, some giving the two new arrivals doubtful looks and sneers as they passed by. Sam suddenly felt very sorry for them…if it hadn't been for the rangers, he'd probably be one of them…or worse, in a containment card for the disappearance of the one basketball bully who he'd have teleported to Terra Venture if he'd been given the chance…

Shuddering at the though he turned back to Jack and smiled weakly. Jack held out his hand to him, Sam shook it.

"You know now about what happened back then?" Jack asked as he went to retrieve his glasses.

Sam nodded, "Yeah, I just got back about an hour and a half ago."

Jack snorted as he tried to stifle a laugh, "Just got back huh?"

Sam looked down at his feet then up again and shrugged his shoulders, "Yeah I guess it does sound a bit weird…"

Z wrapped an arm around Jack's shoulders and an arm around Sam's, "Come on, you don't have another class do you?"

"Nah, that was the last one."

"Great, you two can take me out for lunch," she said cheerily as she led them out of the classroom, she was slightly off balance as both men were taller than her, "is that neat little Chinese place still there?"

A loud beeping emitted from Sam's arm and he groaned. He was finally seeing Jack and Z again, finally becoming friends with them again and of course criminals decided to not take a holiday at this time such as would be convenient for his schedule…those types were so inconsiderate…

Letting out a sigh Sam clicked a button on his morpher, "Omega here, go ahead."

"_Where are you?"_

Sam let out a sigh as he recognized the voice as Nova's…she sounded pissed. Immediately his mind went to the threat Tate had uttered earlier about suspending Nova's morpher. He just hadn't expected it to be so soon…or for Nova to be able to contact him to rant and rave about it especially when two of Tate's close friends were beside him. At least he hoped that was why she was contacting him so he had a valid reason to cut her off and go for lunch.

"I'm at a school, why?" he replied giving the other two apologetic looks.

"_Tate wants us all in the Command Center, something about a place called Zentor or something,"_

"Ouch," Z and Jack remarked wincing as the recognized the name, "tough break," but then their winces turned into smirks as they realized what was being implied…oh, the rangers were going to be in for a surprise when they got there.

Sam let out a sigh, well so much for visiting… "He wants us **right** now?"

"_Yes right now! He's right in front of me and looks eerily cheerful…"_

Sam frowned as he stared down at his morpher…Cheerful? Tate? Z and Jack giving him sympathetic yet strangely evil looks? Something really really bad was about to happen to the rangers…and he really didn't want to know what it was. He thought that after his whole adventure he was going to get a bit of a break once he got back, to work out a few things…obviously not.

Jack had raised his hand and gestured in the universal sign of "gimme", as Sam cocked his head to the side and looked at him puzzled. Jack rolled his eye and gestured to Sam's morpher. Sam held out his arm to the former red ranger.

"Do I have to hold a button down or anything?"

Sam shook his head and barely managed to get out, "Why? What are you-" before he was cut off.

Jack had taken the liberty to yell into his morpher, apparently believing there was something wrong with Nova's "SKY? YOU THERE? COME ON, GIVE THE KID A BREAK!"

"Yeah," Z chimed in as Jack pushed Sam's arm closer to her indicating he wanted support in this matter, "he's hanging out with us, everything is cool, no need to send him to Zentor."

"Poor guy is exhausted, and so pale," Jack continued jokingly as Sam desperately tried to reclaim control over his arm with no avail, "What are you feeding these rangers nowadays?"

"Jack! Z! Stop it!" Sam said flushing as he realized that the entire ranger team was probably listening to all of this, now they were going to think he was really weird...well weirder.

But the tug of war between Sam and Jack was becoming more strained as Sam worked hard to cut his former "team-mate" off and try and explain the situation to Nova and anyone else who was in the room receiving the transmission. Jack was having too much fun confusing whoever was on the other end of the communication and continued to pull hard on Sam's wrist. Z was in-between the two of the laughing at the situation. They'd never had this type of fun when Sam had been a light ball; in fact, they hadn't interacted with him too much in ways of "fun" in 2025. Agreeing with Jack (even though she herself held the rank of Commander) that confusing Sky or Nova was much better and very funny as they watched the young ranger attempted to save face she decided to join in the tugging. She suddenly yanked hard on the young man's coat sleeve, catching him off guard and throwing him off balance.

A "Whoa!" from Sam, a startled shriek from Z and some comedic failing of Jack's arms later, Sam fell forwards into Z, who in turn knocked into Jack, tripping him and sending the three of them falling to the floor with Jack on the bottom, Z in the middle and Sam onto Z before he ended up falling to the floor beside her.

The three of them looked over at each other before uncontrollably bursting out laughing at the absurdity of what had just happened.

On the other end of the communication Nova, Tate, Kat and the five B-Squad rangers were staring down at the control panel as though it had suddenly come alive. The commotion that had come after Sam's protests for the two former B-Squad rangers to stop had made them wonder exactly what was going on, on the other end of the transmission. Tate was rolling his eyes at his former team-mate's antics even though he couldn't see them.

"Jack, Z, stop corrupting Omega with your evil ways and get him back here," he sighed but couldn't help but smile at the sounds of laughter that came from the three of them.

"_Ouch, Sky, that hurts," _Came Jack's sarcastic quip, but it lost its' edge as he was still laughing.

"_Anyways, why should we bring him back? Sending him to Zentor is just mean," _Z added in the same tone.

"_Guys, honestly, I'm still on duty-" _Sam insisted a bit more seriously, but he was obviously trying to stop laughing. There was a bit of shuffling around before it was clear that Sam had gotten possession back over his morpher, _"Sorry Commander, sorry Nova, I'll get there as soon as I can, Omega out." _

Meanwhile on IO…

Instead of reading her book Sydney found herself throwing it at what appeared to be a giant mutated octopus before kicking it backwards and hitting the alarm. She wasn't sure how all these monsters had gotten into the base, but the main priority now was to get them all contained…again. Next time she saw Lola or Quinn someone was going to get a good lecture just to let her let off some steam about the incident.

The fluorescent lighting of the IO base was immediately converted into red lights accompanied with siren sounds. As the Octopus attempted to grab Sydney's leg with one of its' tentacles, and succeeded wrapping it around her leg and pulling her down. A crackling around was heard and the monster's attention was distracted towards a middle aged man with short redish-brown hair and 'Buddy Holly' glasses holding a SPD sidearm.

He shot the monster a few more times before it released Sydney and turned its' attention on the new arrival.

"Commander Drew! Come on!" the man insisted as the blonde scrambled over to the door.

"Thanks Dr. Quinn," she gasped as she tugged on the long sleeved shirt he was wearing, "come on! this way."

Quinn shot a few more times before hastily following the Commander down the hallway to an emergency exit.

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	6. Chapter 6

"Who would've though it? Omega sounds capable of having fun," Andre whispered to Mimi who still was looking at the control panel funny.

"Well at least we know he's capable of being human, unlike someone…" she whispered back using her head to gesture over to Nova who didn't seem to believe any of what she'd just heard was her partner.

"Tate doesn't seem that upset," Drew whispered to add into the mini conversation, "If it was one of us he'd be pissed."

Beth and Chris who while hadn't contributed were listening, nodded in agreement.

Tate wasn't a really relaxed guy, especially when they all knew of the school that the former red ranger who had led Earth's 2025 B-Squad to victory over Grumm was about forty-five minutes away by car. In the past two years since it had opened, rangers visited it at one point in time, just to get a glimpse at the famous ex-ranger. For Omega to get back as quickly as Tate would have normally liked would be impossible for any normal person. It was going to delay them for a while…

Or was it?

They heard a shriek and then frantic footsteps running down the hallway towards the Command Center and mere seconds later Sam bolted into the Command Center and took his place beside Nova, he face slightly flushed, probably from all the laughing or embarrassment or maybe he'd run back (though the latter very unlikely)…Tate couldn't decide.

"Omega-"

"I'm sorry sir," Sam replied as he tried to catch his breath properly, he'd just teleported and was still have a problem with where he ended up due to the security systems S.P.D. had put up since some species of aliens had similar capabilities and the fact that he was still new to the idea of teleporting himself as opposed to other objects. He'd managed to end up down the hall in a "broom" closet, freaking the poor janitor out who'd been searching for stain remover. The combination sprint and still recovering from laughing wasn't a nice feeling "I uh…"

The other rangers looked stunned…even Nova…there was no way he could've gotten back that fast…

Tate shook his head, "It's alright, I understand Commander Delgado can be very persuasive at times, please just next time, don't let her or Jack get a hold of your communications-"

"You can say that again," Sam muttered to himself before straightening up into proper stance, "Yes Commander."

She knew she shouldn't ask. She really knew she shouldn't…but she had to.

"If you don't mind me asking…what exactly were you doing?" Beth asked doing her best to sound professional; as if the information pertained to something important…she got away with it mainly because everyone else was wondering the exact same thing.

That included Nova.

"What **were** you doing?" she asked slowly in a voice that clearly stated 'I am so pissed at you right now you should be relieved there are witnesses in the room or you'd be toast.'

Sam looked over at Nova nervously, "I was with Commander Delgado and she wanted me to go visit Jack Landors with her and uh…when you called there was a bit of a fight over my morpher…"

"Yeah we figured that out," Chris muttered under his breath, Mimi nudged him in the side with her elbow to get him quiet.

"And?" Nova pressed, "You said you were at the school, that's a ways a way in a car, how'd you get back so soon?"

The first thing Beth noticed what how the young man immediately tensed up when she asked him the question. It was sort of putting him on the spot, but there couldn't be an "evil" reason right? That would make no sense. She didn't even know any "evil" reason existed in the realm of instantaneous transportation. But judging by the Omega Ranger's body language he did not want to discus it, and Commander Tate was **not** going to make him.

"Never mind that," Tate said causing the ranger's attention to revert back to him.

The look in Nova's eyes indicated that she was going to get to the bottom of it eventually and the B-Squad began to feel real sympathy for him as they remembered they shared a room.

"Someone should be put on guard to make sure Omega isn't attacked when he sleeps…" Beth whispered, but not as subtly as she would have liked.

"Cadet Duke, do you have something to say?" Tate asked turning to the young woman who turned as pink as her uniform.

"No sir," she responded looking at her feet.

"Good," Tate said as he eyed all the rangers. Sam did have to admit, with that smirk that seemed plastered on his face since Sam had arrived, did make him look strangely cheerful when he was about to kill them earlier… "Since you appear to not have the training to work with each other I am sending you to someone who will give it to you."

Nova frowned…first he had to go and cut off her access to the morphing grid halfway through her practice causing her to almost get shot by a Krybot while powered down, and now he was sending them off for more training? Did she get a say in anything? Ever? Why was it she had rank in the gold badge community that was supposed to be upheld outside of it, but wasn't?

But she bit her bottom lip, she was going to say something she'd regret and she was quite happy not working on Pluto, which wasn't even really a planet.

"When do we leave sir?" Chris asked glancing over at the other rangers before asking, "do we…uh…pack anything?" he added awkwardly.

Kat smiled at them, "Everything you need is on the ship, it has pre-programmed coordinates, and it should get you there in a few hours."

The two ranger "teams" looked over at each other…hours? This was not going to go well. Andre took a deep breath before releasing it and squinting for no particular reason. Hours? The atmosphere in the ship was going to be unbearable with all of them trapped in there. Beth and Sam both had sinking feelings that they might be unofficially in charge of making sure there were no corpses in the ship by the time they got to Zentor. Somehow they didn't think that would go over too well…

Though on the other hand, forcing them to be around each other in a confined space could do something good and force them to talk about things that wouldn't result in the mutilation or killing of anyone. They didn't get the feeling if they did talk about stuff like that, that it would stay on topic for long before they were back at each other's throat. Sam hoped this guy was good, he'd never realized it before, but they were a pretty misfit team and needed all the help they could get if they ever wanted to work together.

Not that they of course wanted to at this point…

"Why does Omega have to do this?" Chris snapped before he could stop himself, "Isn't he suddenly 'perfect'?"

There was a collective round of "ooooooohs" at that statement and they turned to Sam to see how he would react. He simply glanced over at Chris before looking back at Tate. He didn't know what to say to that and not give something away or retort with an insult which would be counterproductive.

"_Must not take it personally,"_ Sam repeated like a mantra in his head… _"Must not take it personally,"_

"Is that what you all think?" Tate demanded to know.

"Well," Drew began turning to the B-Squad, "I think I speak for B-Squad when I say that he and Nova show up late for battle, he gets one good idea about combining the Zords and suddenly he knows more about teamwork than us when he has NEVER made an effort to be a team with us. Why does he get the right to keep his morpher and we do not?"

The rest of B-Squad nodded in agreement as he spoke.

Tate's eyes narrowed, "Do you think I am incompetent?" the B-Squad rangers looked stunned, Sam meanwhile, clasped a hand over his cheek out of pure fear of what Nova would say to that. The gesture brought a small smile to Kat's face.

"Uh…no sir," Drew replied flushing as Andre nudged him forwards, "what was that for?" he snapped back to his team-mate in a harsh whisper.

"That's one of you," Tate sighed…he needed more Advil… Stat… he then added in a more drill sergeant tone, "What about the rest of you?"

"No sir!" the rest of the rangers replied snapping to a taller stance, except Nova, who didn't say anything to it.

"You take off immediately, dismissed."

Kat gestured for the rangers to follow her, and rather reluctantly they did. She led them to the ship and they entered, not pleased to see the seats were in rows beside each other. There was going to be on avoiding the others on the journey, and Kat was suddenly grateful she wasn't one of the passengers. She waved goodbye as the hatch closed and the ship took off.

The interior was silent.

Tension you could cut with a knife.

Andre sat in what would have been the pilot's seat if someone was driving and was attempting to pull his dark hair back into a ponytail…but his hair simply wasn't long enough for him to do it. Mimi sat in the co-pilot's chair while Chris and Beth sat behind them, then Drew, Nova, and Sam. All were doing something idle like Andre in an attempt to ease some of the awkwardness. Beth had started re-braiding her hair; Mimi had started playing a game of "I spy" with Chris, and Andre, Nova had started looking over her nails, while Sam just watched them all. No one knew what to do. They didn't want to talk because that would inevitably end up in arguing and they had hours to go on their journey still…no one wanted an unpleasant ride.

They stayed like this for an hour until…

"Red, do you have any idea what's on Zentor?" Nova asked looking over at Drew specifically who was about to answer Mimi's sudden challenge of 'I spy something green', which was narrowed down to Chris's uniform or an unidentified button on the ship's controls.

Sam was pretty sure that at that moment…time stopped. Had Nova just spoken to a B-Squad ranger of her own free will…and were those neutral words? Sam smiled at the young woman. It was a start.

Drew's eyes went wide, "Me?"

Nova raised an eyebrow and rolled her eyes, "No, the other red ranger in here…any ideas?"

"I heard that some people go there for special weapons and tactics training, apparently the guy there has a way of getting any team into shape," Andre sighed sensing Drew had no idea, "he's going to have a hell of a time with us. I've heard he's more annoying than scary though. But that's from the pink ranger from KO-35, and I'm not sure if she likes me…"

"Hard time might be an understatement," Sam sighed as he leaned against the back of his chair…god he wanted to go to bed…and eat, why wasn't he hungry at lunch when it was convenient? "I don't suppose she packed up anything to eat do you think?"

"I thought you weren't hungry," Mimi said feeling (for some odd reason) sorry for using up his food card, even though he'd given it to her.

Sam shrugged, "I wasn't, the people in the cafeteria kind of made me nervous so I left…" he paused, "Jack, Z, and I were going to go for lunch actually before-"

Beth smiled as she realized they were all sort of having a conversation that wasn't insults…well…yet… "So why were the three of you going to lunch? You've never worked for her and Jack left S.P.D. when we were all little kids," she asked trying to keep the conversation on neutral ground.

"Probably trying to get that transfer," Chris snorted, but was elbowed by Beth angrily.

"What transfer?" Sam asked cocking his head to the side.

Nova let out a groan, "I'll explain it later, okay?"

Sam's head stayed in the same spot but his gaze shifted over to Nova who was waving the apparent accusation off as though it was nothing when it was obviously something he should be informed about. What had happened when he'd been talking to Commander Tate? Why did he always manage to miss things like that?

"Uh…anyways…I was…sort of…" he struggled to find the right word, but couldn't "well… Jack, Z, Sky, Sydney and Bridge were rangers at the time…they got me enrolled at S.P.D., after I got accepted into the gold badge program we hadn't talked much." Sam paused and took a deep breath, he felt horrible for the way he'd treated the other rangers, especially when they'd known the entire time about his 'destiny' to be the Omega Ranger "When she came to visit Commander Tate she thought she'd come and see me and Jack too. I was literally dragged out of the base by her. I hadn't seen Jack in years, I didn't even realise he was a teacher."

He put his feet up on the edge of Nova's seat stretching out his legs. Much to the surprise of the B-Squad, Nova didn't protest to the invasion of her personal 'bubble.' Drew turned to Beth smiling, but Beth frowned.

"No, get a footstool or something," she replied before the question was even asked.

Chris studied the two gold badges he despised so much and tried to think of a way to annoy them…he didn't come up with much better than, "So enough with this Nova and Omega shit, what are your names?"

Sam and Nova glanced at each other. Gold badges weren't called by their first names. They never had been. Why should it change? Nova was about to protest but Sam replied hoping to open friendly relations with the other rangers. No use hiding behind codenames anyways…

"I'm Sam Breaker, this…" he said gesturing over to Nova, "is Lisa Bright, but don't call her that."

"Damn straight," Nova agreed nodding to Sam and glaring at Chris, as if daring him to call her Lisa. If he did she was going to break his arm in two places, no lie.

"Lisa's a pretty name," Beth remarked edging forwards on her seat, "why don't you like it?"

"Don't go there," Nova grumbled angrily folding her arms across her chest. She looked over at Sam's feet and then back at him. He wiggled his toes in response and earned a fleeting smirk from her.

The ship went silent again.

"Awkward," Sam remarked, then added "Alright, what about you guys? Tell us something about you, maybe it'll get us through the trip…" his stomach rumbled in response, "okay, after I find something edible."

He cracked his neck and took his feet down from Nova's seat. Removing himself from the main sitting area he began searching through the bags Kat had packed for them. He went over to the bag that said "Super Emergency Supplies," (a weird label for Kat to put on the bag, it didn't even make sense.) The undoing of zippers began and the throwing aside of everything that wasn't food…

Drew thought for a minute running a hand through his blonde hair, "Well, what can I say? My name's Andrew McCormick Jr., I grew up in a little town called Charterville. I was a big comic book fan when I was a kid. Apparently Charterville was known for having a superhero team of its' own when my father was a kid and-"

"Wait, I thought your last name was Williams…" Mimi interrupted as she frowned at her team-mate. She was supposed to know about him already.

Drew rolled his eyes, "It's what I'm under the academy as, my father worked there for a few years and the database wouldn't accept two people with the same name even with a number added to it. I don't know some sort of weird problem they've since worked out. But everyone knows me as Drew Williams so I go by it, no big deal."

"So where'd the Williams come from?" Nova asked frowning.

"My godfather's last name."

"Ah I get- ouch!" Nova began then snapped as she was nailed in the back of the head by a flying pair of binoculars, "Holy shit that hurt! Omega! Stop throwing things!" She turned around in time to duck as a green pair of sweatpants went over her head and landed on Drew.

"Thanks a lot Omega," Drew mumbled sarcastically pulling the sweatpants off of his head.

The constant shuffling sound abruptly stopped. Sam didn't respond.

"Sam?" Andre asked letting the name roll of his tongue awkwardly, as he attempted getting used to the fact Omega did indeed have a name, "you alright?"

Sam cocked his head to the side as he peered into one of the black backpacks. He struggled to pull something out of it by bracing his feet against it and then pulling with his upper body. It took a while but he managed to get it out. He stared at the object and turned it over numerous times before placing it on the ground. The other rangers were leaning over in an attempt to see what he was doing.

"Care to fill us in?" Chris asked rolling his eyes, he didn't care if they were being nice now, it was just a ploy to get Nova's morpher reinstated, he was sure of it.

Sam picked up the object and showed it to the rangers who gave him strange looks. The smooth silver surface reflected the light in the ship.

"Is that a-" Andre began but Mimi beat him to the punch.

"A toaster?"

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	7. Chapter 7

Sorry about the delay, I'm at my dad's house and this story is mostly saved on my other computer, so there probably won't be another update for a little while...sorry

But please review and enjoy

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"There's a lifetime supply of bread and butter in here too," Sam reported as he pulled the containers out, he also pulled out a length of rope and set it aside.

"Super Emergency Supplies," Beth read off of the bag as she nudged through the rangers to get a closer look, "since when is there such a thing?"

"And since when would it include a toaster?" Drew chimed in.

"How odd," Nova remarked eyeing the B-Squad rangers, they must know something about where they were going that her and Sam didn't. The only explanation, and for a minute there she thought they weren't as bad as she thought.

"So…toast…why so much toast?" Mimi asked wrinkling her nose up, "I hate toast."

"Hope you never need to work with Commander Carson, he'd probably demote you to a D-Level cadet in a heartbeat if he hears you say that," Sam replied as he attempted to squish the toaster back into the bag.

Beth shook her head and went over to hold the bag open for him. Together they managed to put everything back except one bag of bread which Sam thought was good to have a slice as a snack as he looked for more food. After a few more minutes of searching, he didn't find anything else.

"Maybe she doesn't expect us to be there long," he suggested hopefully, "either that or there's canteen wherever we're going."

"With her we'll be there forever," Chris snorted gesturing over to Nova who actually growled at him.

In a blink of an eye the ship had turned from semi-peaceful conversation to a full out brawl between the Green and Nova ranger…okay full out brawl was a bit of an overstatement. It mostly consisted of Nova's fist smashing into the Green ranger's nose before Sam and the other rangers even registered what was going on.

Chris stumbled backwards clutching his nose. He could feel a warm liquid coming from his nose. Oh hell….he was bleeding.

He glared at the Nova ranger who had Sam's arms wrapped around her waist as he attempted to restrain her, "You are damn lucky you're female-"

"Why? So you're all talk?" Nova snapped as he squirmed to get away from Sam, she craned her neck to look at him and let out an annoyed protest "Let go Omega!" she demanded pushing on Sam's chest to no avail. She had agility and speed, but Sam was male and in very good shape. His muscle strength by far outweighed her's "He's been asking for it!"

The other coloured rangers rushed over to their "fallen" comrade, Mimi was attempting to get Chris's hand away from his nose to see how bad the damage was. Even if Nova had barely scratched him, it wasn't the point, it was the principle of the thing, she attacked him. Andre and Drew immediately went defensive.

"How the hell did you get into the Gold Badge Program and such a rank if you go around punching out people when you get mad!"

"Hey! Why'd you do that?" Andre demanded stepping in front of the other rangers as if he alone was going to take on Nova.

"Cause he's an asshole and deserves it!" Nova growled as she kicked back, hitting Sam in the groin. He doubled over in pain, letting go of his estranged counterpart.

He fell back onto his chair, "Not fitting well with the teamwork idea," Sam groaned as Beth came over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. The tiny pink ranger let out a sad sigh.

And things had been going pretty well considering…

"Guys! Stop it! This is ridiculous!" she insisted as she tried to talk some reason into her friends and pull Nova back a few steps from Andre. They were engaged in a weird evil eye staring contest that she was sure was going to end in blows and was surprised it already hadn't, "We're all on the same team."

"Beth! Stay out of this!" Mimi snarled, "Ever since Omega got on this whole thing you've been going along with it and-"

"It's a good idea!" Beth interrupted not wanted her team mates turned against her, "Look, we're not perfect, we don't have to like each other, just…work together."

Sam was still wincing as he attempted to get up and support the pink ranger, but instead found himself on top of her when the ship suddenly lurched forwards. It appeared some higher power was against them as the entire ship took a nosedive. Nova and Andre ended up crushed against Mimi, Drew and Chris ending any evil staring contests that they'd been having in favour of attempting to untangle themselves and get to the controls. Mimi was the one who succeeded first.

"Do something!" Drew ordered as he pushed Andre off of him but directed him comment towards Mimi.

"I don't know what to do!" she shot back in a panic, "I've never flown a ship like this before!"

"Then get out of the way!" Drew said scrambling over to the yellow ranger and shoving her out of the way as he took the controls.

But it was too late.

_Back on Earth…_

Tate cracked his neck and look around the empty Ranger Rec Room. No rangers really changed everything, the whole base seemed quieter, but the strangest part was no headache. He was practically prancing down the hallway with a grin plastered on his face, just looking into the room to make sure they weren't hiding out in there or something weird. He knew the Commander he'd sent them to would be able to handle them, with his methods he could get anyone to do anything.

He glanced down at his watch and thought for a few minutes about what to do. He hadn't had lunch yet and Z was on Earth with Jack…maybe they could go somewhere.

His plans were interrupted as his badge/communicator beeped a few times. He let out a sigh and pulled it out and flipped it open. He'd gotten a new badge since his time as the red ranger, the black and white detailing of the old one replaced with the all black one similar to the Patrol Morpher, Cruger had in his possession to become Shadow Ranger.

"Tate here, go ahead."

"Sky, it's Kat, you need to get to the Command Center, it's an emergency,"

Hearing the urgency in the feline's voice Sky nodded well aware that Kat couldn't see him, "Be right there," he closed the badge and jogged back to the Command Center. He seriously hoped that there wasn't a giant monster attacking the city already. If there was he was probably going to need to fish his Advil out sooner than he wanted to.

In his hurry to get to the Command Center he drew some attention from other Cadets, one young Asian man with long black hair pulled back into a ponytail whispered to the blue haired alien beside him, "Look, already he's going to regret sending them away."

Sky shot the young man a glare, the young man cringed as he realized he'd been heard, but Tate let it slip this time, since he was in a hurry.

Arriving at the Command Center he was greeted with Kat and Boom watching a communication with their jaws dropped and skin shades paler than he recalled them being. Immediately he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, "What's wrong?" he demanded in his best "Commander" voice.

Kat momentarily snapped out of her state to tap a few buttons, "We just received this message, it appears to have been sent a few hours ago…it doesn't look good Sky…here," she rewound the message to the beginning and hit play.

The image of a beaten and bruised Sydney appeared on the screen, blood dripping down the side of her face and her normally perfect hair burnt in some places and dishevelled, explosions could be heard in the background, and screams.

"_This is Commander Drew of the IO base, to anyone who gets this message, somehow the containment cards that were transferred to us from HQ were defective or something, all the criminals have gotten out. We've tried but we-" _She was cut off as an explosion went off behind her. One Cadet with her got up and began firing at the perpetrator who was off screen, _"Among the criminals that escaped were Mora, General Benaag, Slate,-" _she was cut off again by a voice off screen calling to her.

"Commander! We need to go! Now!"

"_I'm setting the base to self destruct," _Sydney continued gesturing 'one more minute' with her finger, _"hopefully the situation will be contained in the blast, but we don't know-Ahhhhhh!"_

"Sydney!" Sky all but screamed at the screen as the message suddenly cut off, he looked down…his knuckles were white, "Oh my god…"

_Back with the rangers…_

Much to her dismay Nova found herself coughing up sand when she exited the crashed ship. They appeared to be on a desert planet in the middle of a sandstorm…

"Great…just peachy," she muttered crossing her arms across her chest and ducking her head to shield herself as she attempted to get back into the ship that wasn't more of a piece of junk now…

"Everyone okay?" Drew asked looking around and rubbing his eyes, he got four voices in confirmation, but that wasn't enough, "Wait-"

"It's Beth," Sam said as he began lightly shaking the pink ranger, "I think she hit her head."

"Get away from her!" Andre snapped pushing Sam back from the pink ranger and proceeding to do the exact same thing Sam had been doing making the Omega Ranger roll his eyes.

The multicoloured officers surrounded the pink ranger leaving Sam feeling utterly rejected and not sure why it bothered him so much. He shouldn't have expected to make a lot of progress in one day with them. Beth had been the other "peacekeeper" though and with her knocked out; it wasn't a good situation for him.

Nova re-entered the ship muttering something about a sandstorm. He didn't get a lot of what she said, but he did pick up on the fact they were stuck in the ship until it cleared over...somehow he felt volunteering to venture out in his ranger suit wouldn't got over well and neglected to mention that option. Nova dragged him over to one corner of the ship, leaving the other rangers in the other.

"Alright, what's gotten into you again?" Nova snapped at her partner, "What did those rangers do to you twenty years ago? You're suddenly preaching peace with the regular badges? Where the **hell** did that come from?"

"It works," Sam insisted, "and it's a helluva nicer work environment when everyone at SPD isn't against you! Nova, they're not bad people, we haven't given them a chance-"

"They never gave us one-" Nova replied in a "matter of fact" voice.

"Cause they've been taught we're "bad"" Sam attempted to explain, "just like what we were taught about them, but in reality if we're going to be assigned to Earth indefinitely we might as well get along with them in battle. I'm not asking you to be their best friend or anything just-"

"And they've responded so well to your attempts." Nova nearly growled, "Pinky is only going along with it because she has the hots for you, got it? You're alone in this decision."

"Sky thinks-" Sam replied then winced, he'd become accustomed to referring to him as Sky but hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"You're on a first name basis now?"

"Nova-"

"I thought we were partners Omega!"

"I thought so too! What the hell is with this getting a transfer?" Sam snapped back, he could feel his patience slipping through his fingers as he spoke.

"It was nothing," Nova retaliated suddenly becoming very defensive, "I wanted a change, you didn't need to go too, that's why I didn't tell you."

"That's BS and you know it! Nova we haven't been separated since we got accepted into and it's also against regulations because you're my partner for you to be station on a different base than me! I know how much you care about regulations and what people think, spill!"

"None of you business! And we have been! You get to spend a few months with another 'team' of rangers and suddenly you know better than everyone else?"

They hadn't noticed that their voices were getting progressively louder till they were nearly shouting at each other. The commotion was making the rangers turn away from Beth and in the direction they were. Mimi had to admit that she'd never seen Omega in full "bitch" mode but he looked pissed and it was suddenly becoming clear that if he wanted he could hold his own against Nova in an argument…he'd just gone up half a notch in her eyes. He was now worth half a notch…

"You know they had their problems but were a lot easier to get along with than this one!"

Drew loudly cleared his voice in an attempt to get the two Gold Badges to remember there actually were other people in the ship and they could easily hear everything they were saying. His attempt was cut off by a new arrival to the ship. A ranger in a black suit with yellow "lighting bolt" highlights and the Roman Numeral for ten in the middle of the uniform.

"Power Down!" the newest arrival announced to reveal a man with dark brown hair and a goofy grin on his face, "Whooowhee! Quite a storm out there," he said as though there was nothing strange about what he just did.

At that moment Beth began to stir slightly, opening her eyes briefly before they fell shut again. Encouraged, Andre continued to shake her.

"Bridge?" Sam asked raising his eyebrows at the new arrival who was dressed in a green T-shirt and black pants, not the uniform they'd expected.

"That's Commander Carson to you Sammy boy," Carson joked as he shook his head to get the imaginary sand out of it, "Sky told me you'd be coming in…joining me…dropping in…I've always wondered what it is about this planet that makes ships crash when they get to close, you'd think it would be against the point wouldn't you? I mean, if you wanted a nice tourist spot, you'd want people to land nicely. I think Silverback had something to do with it, maybe pilot testing skills? And how did Z know where to go when she dropped us off twenty years ago?"

"How many rhetorical questions can you ask in a minute?" Mimi snorted.

"I don't know," Carson continued, "let's count…Why is abbreviation such a long word? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Why do people order a double cheeseburger, large fries, and a diet soda? I mean, a diet soda would hardly help you there…Why don't sheep shrink when it rains? Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour? Oh! That's a good one! And-"

"We get it…sir," Drew cut off cocking his head to the side, he'd heard strange things about Commander Carson.

Cadet Wong swore that he actually talked to his kitchen appliances, while another said he stood on his head to think. He'd been told that he'd become slightly less of a "rambler" when focused on his job, but otherwise anything was free game. He was suddenly very concerned that Tate had felt the need to send them to him in order for them to get them to work together.

Sam and Nova suddenly seemed really embarrassed and both flushed as they looked away from each other.

"Well come on then, let's start your training," Carson said then spotted the 'Super Emergency Supplies' bag, "Oh! Kat sent the rations I needed! D'aubigne, grab that bag! Rest of you, follow me, Sam, you might want to morph for this, it's pretty windy out there and carry the pink ranger and those two bags there. You've got muscle mode or something. Bright, get that bag, Williams that one, Hidell those two smaller ones and Grissom that one. Everyone good? Alright here are very temporary morphers; they'll get you through the sand storm. Let's go."

The rangers sort of stared at Carson for a moment before realizing that a superior had given them orders and they should probably do them.

"SPD Emergency," Sam said as he hit a button on his morpher. His suit snapped into place and he activated muscle mode in order to carry Beth and two giant knapsacks at once. He just hoped it lasted long enough. Muscle mode wasn't meant to be used to long periods of time and he had no idea how long this hike would be.

"SPD Emergency," Carson announced as the black and yellow uniform from before snapped into place and he led the way outside, not carrying anything.

"SPD Emergency," Nova and the B-Squad followed with the temporary morphers that simply gave them regular ranger suits all in the colour white, Mimi held the temporary morpher in Beth's hand and pushed the button, causing the suit to snap into place on Beth.

"But it's still storming out there!" Mimi protested her voice slightly muffled through her helmet.

"Suck it up," Andre grumbled.

And off they went.


	8. Chapter 8

Yeah! I Updated!

Wow...this story is turning out waaaaaaay longer than expected...

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Bridge smirked behind his helmet, he was well aware of the protests that had been pelted at him for the past hour as the rangers attempted to make it through the sandstorm. From what he'd heard about these rangers was that they were quite fine to work as a "team" within their own badge rank. He also noted that while Nova was muttering angrily to herself she wasn't making any of her famous "protests" Sky had mentioned in early conversations.

He was also well aware of what the argument Sam and Nova had been having had been about. Nova was (without noticing) trying to make Sam happy by not making her protests more verbal. Every time Sam let out a groan of some sort she'd offer to carry something, even though she was just having a hard time seeing with all the sand and the lesser grade temporary suit. He'd also heard the part about the pink ranger being willing to go along with the whole idea of teamwork for whatever agenda she had, being it was it appeared or what Nova assumed. Those facts were going to be a lot of help.

"Shouldn't we get her some sort of medical attention?" Chris said coughing.

"And where are we going?" Drew yelled over the sound of the wind, "you found us not long after we crashed, why is it taking us so long to go wherever."

Carson shrugged, "Oh, I don't know where I'm going, all this sand starts looking the same after a while."

The ranger's jaws dropped and Nova brought her hand to visor in hopes that she could see slightly better.

"You mean…you have no idea where we're going?!" she nearly screamed as she felt the frequency of sand hitting her lessen slightly.

"Nope,"

A collective groan was let out by the rangers.

"Don't worry, we'll find a forest or house soon."

"How is there a forest on a desert planet?" Sam asked as he adjusted his hold on Beth who he hoped would wake up soon. He needed her to carry one of the bags, his muscle mode was wearing off and he was in danger of powering down since he'd used it for so long already.

"Magic?" Carson suggested shrugging.

It was twenty minutes later the exhausted rangers managed to find the house and take shelter in there. They all powered down except Beth who was still out. Sam managed to put the backpacks down and laid Beth on a chair before he powered down and collapsed on the floor beside the pink ranger, thoroughly exhausted. The other rangers didn't appear to be doing too well either, except Nova had immediately found a bathroom and began attempting to get sand out of her hair and clothes, even being protected by the suit didn't help as much as she would've liked. The other rangers were just sandy lumps on the floor wearing backpacks.

Bridge didn't power down, but smiled behind his helmet, "This will be your shelter till the storm blows over, after that, straight into training…and stay out of my bedroom, and I don't need sand in it. Sand is scratchy and uncomfortable and I don't like it."

Resisting asking the question, "then why do you live here?" Chris managed to drag himself onto a chair. He took great amusement from the fact that Omega appeared more exhausted then everyone else and he'd been morphed in a full ranger suit not a temporary one. Sam was passed out on the floor while everyone else was at least still awake and with a bit more dignity than to just randomly pass out wherever.

"Uh…is he okay?" Drew asked nervously as he struggled to get his knapsack off.

Nova emerged from the washroom, and gasped when she saw Sam lying on the floor, "Oh my god, Omega!" she ran over to him and began to shake him lightly.

"What's wrong with him?" Mimi asked a slight quiver in her voice.

"Oh god…muscle mode isn't meant to be used to for longer than twenty minutes, you can stretch it out longer but it drains the energy of a ranger really quickly. He had it going this whole time…oh god, Omega! Wake up!"

"Great, now we have two of them out," Chris sighed but then paused as he heard two small groans, "or maybe not-"

"Omega? Thank the lord," Nova let out in a sigh of relief as the young man's eyes flickered open and he attempted to move, but got enveloped in a hug from Nova so she was nearly sitting on him.

Mimi moved over to Beth who was also stirring awake, "Beth! Oh yes! Come on girl, open you eyes."

Beth's eyes opened and she looked around in confusion, "Where are we?" she asked bolting up into a sitting position and immediately regretting the action as her muscles protested, she frowned as she realized she was looking through a visor "What happened? And uh…Power down?" the temp suit disappeared in a flash of white light.

As Mimi and Chris tiredly explained everything that had happened in the past two hours Nova and Bridge supported Sam on either shoulder and laid him down on the couch where he promptly fell back asleep. Drew watched as Bridge took the "Super Emergency Supplies" bag into the kitchen area. With him being the Commander the toast suddenly made sense.

Nova sat on the edge of the couch and leaned her head on Sam's stomach and promptly fell asleep as well.

Beth hung onto every word as the rangers explained about the hike and about Carson, "So one of you carried me?"

"Omega did," Drew answered gesturing over to the two sleeping Gold Badges, "using muscle mode or some crap like that that goes with his morpher."

"Aww that's so cute," Beth squealed as she watched the two, "it's nice to see Nova can be human."

Mimi rolled her eyes, "After that fight they had in the ship, I'm amazed she's willing to even talk to him."

Beth frowned, they'd omitted that part, "What fight?"

"It was pretty awesome," Andre admitted then began gossiping/retelling the argument like a high school girl, "they blew up at each other! Nova started rambling something about Sam having worked with another team and how he thought they were better than this team and then he called Tate, Sky by accident and then she got all mad cause she thought he was 'going behind her back' but then he freaked out about not being told about the whole transfer thing…it kind of got cut off after Cmdr. Carson arrived."

"And Omega got a bit scary, it shows how he can put up with living with a bitch like Nova all the time," Mimi added, "but man, it was weird. Tate never mentioned that Omega was actually part of a ranger team before becoming a gold badge. If he was, why is he deciding now would be a good time to use lessons he learned then…why not when they first arrived?"

"Maybe he had a revelation?" Chris snorted as a ding was heard from the kitchen and Bridge emerged with a plate stacked high with toast.

"Anyone want some toast?" he asked and for the first time the rangers realized that even though he was inside he was wearing leather gloves, with a finger wiggle he added, "it's buttery."

_Back on Earth…_

"Good Afternoon, SPD, how can I help you? There's a monster attacking main street? We'll look into it. Good Afternoon, SPD, how can I help you? A monster just stole your car? We'll send someone out right away. Good Afternoon, SPD, how can I help you? A monster just robbed a jewellery store? Don't touch anything; someone will be there in a little while. Good Afternoon, SPD, how can I help you? You're cat is stuck in a tree?...no, I'm sorry Mrs. Champagne, this is SPD, we don't do cat from tree rescues…try the fire department…or Carter Grayson…yes…your welcome…bye, Good Afternoon, SPD, how can I help you?"

D-Squad Cadet Archie Mantle was literally juggling phones as he attempted to answer all of them and write down vital information at the same time. He was helping the secretaries with the overload of calls after the news of what happened on IO had leaked out into the public. Mass hysteria had erupted and now everyone and their brother were seeing monsters all over town. The C-Squad had been dispatched to check out a few on the disturbances but there were only four of them, the fifth not being in place yet.

Tate was even looking into the ones that appeared to hold some amount of truth to them. Kat was doing her best to filter calls, but a few (such as Mrs. Champagne's) still managed to get through. Tate was reluctant, but realized he might have to recall the rangers from training if any of the claims ended up being truthful.

He was currently on main street looking for the "monster" that had been reported, but there appeared to be no sign of one. He let out a sigh, this Commander business was a lot more stressful than he'd imagined. He paused by an electronics store that was displaying TV's and saw an older woman with greying hair come on the air. The sound was off but the subtitles were on and he read them and sucked in a deep breath.

"_This is Cassidy Cornel with breaking news, a monster known as 'Lippincott' is currently attacking the Newtech city mall down by-"_

Not even needing to see the rest of the sentence Tate was off to the SPD police car and put on the sirens as he sped towards the mall. He seriously hoped Bridge had become a miracle worker and that Sam remembered that he could teleport the rangers back to Newtech instantaneously if he wanted to, to avoid the long ride it would take to get back.

He pressed harder on the accelerator and gripped the wheel till his knuckles were white, he really didn't want to do this…but he had no rangers…

He flipped open his badge, "Z? You there? It's Sky"

It was a few seconds later he got a response_, "Hey Sky, what's up?"_

"Look, I'm going to need some help, how fast can you get to the Newtech mall?"

"_About fifteen minutes," _

"I'll meet you there,"

"_Wait what's this-"_

Sky had clicked his badge closed before Z could finish her question and let out a sad sigh.

This day was too long already.

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Poor Sky...

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Please Review...


	9. Chapter 9

Sorry about the wait, fanfic wouldn't let me upload stuff for a while...very annoying...

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When Sam woke up he noticed a few things right away when he raised his head. First of all, this was** not** his room at S.P.D., second, it did not look at all like the house of anyone he knew, third, there was a strange pressure on his chest and forth, his left hand was numb, indicating it had fallen asleep at some point. He squinted slightly to see that the strange pressure was actually Nova who had fallen asleep on him.

The room was completely dark save for the light that peeked through a small window and the light in another room that was sneaking out through the cracks between around the door. He let out a sigh.

He needed to go to the washroom but it didn't look as though he was going to be able to get up anytime soon.

He let out another sigh as he attempted to move the fingers on his left hand. He winced as he felt a small amount of feeling penetrate the numbness, pins and needles feeling was coming on. He wiggled his fingers a few times and petting Nova's hair with his other hand.

It was coming back now as he felt a twinge in his muscles. He'd overworked muscle mode and collapsed. It was sweet of her to be so worried about him especially in front of the other rangers. She normally hated to appear 'weak' in front of others. He just hoped the B-Squad rangers were smart enough to not tease her about it later on.

"Nice to see you're alright," a voice whispered in his ear causing Sam to nearly jump out of his skin. He turned his wide eyes in the direction of the voice to discover Bridge was actually right by his ear and smiling.

"Brid- Commander," Sam sighed in a whisper as he let his head flop back down onto the edge of the sofa, "never do that again."

Bridge smiled, "You serious about getting this team into shape?"

Sam nodded. Bridge whispered something else into his ear and Sam smirked looking down at the sleeping figure on his chest, "Yeah," he replied, "I guess I can help..."

_Back on Earth…_

Sky stepped out of the S.P.D patrol car and jogged passed a small crowd of people. He wondered how the B-Squad rangers were doing with Bridge. It had been surprising to hear that Silverback had retired from S.P.D. He could just imagine him ordering around little old ladies at a retirement home on Gamma-4. It was a very funny mental image…

When Bridge had been promoted to Commander and chosen as his replacement, Sky knew the right choice had been made. Bridge had gotten better with the rambling, and when he couldn't teach or intimidate a team into working together, the team would eventually get so annoyed with his constant ramblings (that Bridge had learned could work to his advantage) they'd put their difference aside. While some of his methods were slightly extreme, no one could argue that they didn't work.

Sky eventually made it to the front doors of the mall and pushed his way inside. He followed the screams to the food court where he discovered a giant Pudgy Pig like monster devouring the contents of the Dairy Queen and a teenage girl with burgundy hair and a DQ visor was trying to figure out what to do.

"Jeff is going to kill me when he gets back!" she cried as she jumped over the counter of the Dairy Queen and fled from the monster like the other shoppers and workers.

Sky found himself actually looking forwards to this…he hadn't fought a monster as a ranger since he'd been red ranger. The morpher he had active was a gift Kat had given him when he got promoted, he'd never used it for anything more than a badge and communicator. He looked down at the badge and took a deep breath.

"Here goes nothing…" he sighed as he took the proper stance and hand position, "SPD Emergency!"

In a flash of light Sky could feel the suit secure, followed by the helmet and struck a pose that had just become natural to him after all these years. He frowned slightly as he glanced down at his ranger suit…it wasn't what he'd been expecting at all…

The boots and gloves were a silver colour as was the Roman numeral for five hundred on the side of his chest. The helmet was dark as well. The only way to tell when the visor started and the helmet stopped was the silver outlining. He was slightly disappointed to discover his weapon was of a sword, but shorter than Cruger's. It was mainly black as well.

He turned to the monster again and saw a few people pause and stare at the new arrival.

"Stop! S.P.D." he snapped at the pig who simply ignored him. Not bothering to announce himself by ranger name as customary by S.P.D. he simply charged at the monster and raised the sword in the air, "Galactic Striker," he announced as brought it down in one swift movement. A white slash appeared on the Pig's back and it let out a loud squealing sound as it spun around and attempted to hit him with one of its' legs.

Sky easily dodged it and slashed again with, sending Lippincott flying into the ice cream machine at DQ.

"Hey! S.P.D. doesn't have a black ranger," the pig protested as he was suddenly covered in melted ice milk as the machine behind him cracked in half from the force.

"They do now," Sky announced as he leapt onto the top of the Dairy Queen counter, his posture surprisingly relaxed considering the situation, "I am the S.P.D. Galactic Ranger," he announced as the sides of his helmet lit up and flashed like sirens, a start up process on most suits "and I'm here to bring you in."

Sky paused for a second to figure out where he'd gotten that name from, but decided it sounded fine and hoped in the future he didn't get confused with the Galaxy rangers. Maybe Kat had implanted the name along with the suit, because it had just sort of popped in there…

The pig grumbled, "Yeah! Well I've got friends!"

Sky nearly let out a groan, as he heard heavy footsteps behind him.

Meanwhile Z and Jack had both just arrived at the mall in Jack's car. They were hurriedly pushing their way through the crowds of fleeing people and into the now nearly deserted two-storey mall. Z was in the lead and trying to get Sky on his communicator, to no avail.

"Damn it! He's not answering" she growled in frustration but Jack shook his head and dragged her towards the food court where the entire racket was coming from.

"Come on!" he said as they bolted. Jack needed to duck as two Krybots got pitched over his head, "think I found him…"

Z mock glared at her friend as she too needed to duck. The approached the source of the chaos to see a black and silver S.P.D. ranger in the middle of it. Jack and Z frowned and glanced at each other.

"Since when does S.P.D. have a black ranger?" they asked in unison as said ranger was flung backwards in the air, but flipped in time and landed on his feet.

"A little help please,"

"SKY?" Jack and Z blurted out.

"Yes…" the ranger replied "now can you take care of the Krybots while I try to get that pig under control?"

"Yes sir," Z replied rolling her eyes as she indicated for Jack to follow her, "Come on, let's go."

And suddenly Jack found himself in the middle of an army of Krybots, kicking and punching for his life.

It felt great to be back…

Sky meanwhile was not having a good time with the giant pig. All of his knowledge of ranger history indicated that he probably needed a few more rangers to conceal someone of this power. Yet he currently had no rangers…and Bridge was most likely not going to give them back before their training was complete. He hated the idea of upgrading C-Squad so early. None of them were particularly good yet.

A few more slashes later and the front of a high fashion clothing store was gone due to the pig flying through the glass. Sky winced; he was going to need to pay for that out of SPD's budget…


	10. Chapter 10

Well, here's another chapter, I rather like this one personally …

Anyways, shameless plug, there's a story I have called Twisted that I'm rather proud of and would like you guys to check out and review if you get the chance.

* * *

Sam winced as Bridge tied his hands around the slim tree, behind his back, "This wasn't what I expected when you asked me to help."

Bridge looked up at Sam through his yellow and black helmet. The eye visors resembled those of a bug, while the rest of the suit reminded him of a mostly black wasp minus the wings. It wasn't a suit design that was the trademark of any particular planet. In fact, now that Sam really looked at it…he had never seen a suit like it before.

"What's with your suit?"

"It's a prototype that Kat wanted me to test out for her," he explained, "Spiffy, isn't it?"

"Looks a bit unconventional…"

"Well you know, my methods are sometimes unconventional at least that's what I've heard," Bridge explained as he secured Sam's hands properly, "Feel okay?"

Sam nodded, "Yeah, it's fine…" he paused for a few minutes, "so…why are you way out here all by yourself?"

There was a few minutes of silence before Bridge answered, "Well, they needed someone to take over for Silverback…you stand on your head during one meeting, they think your insane and station you out here."

Sam's eyes widened.

"I'm kidding," Bridge reassured chuckling at the younger man's facial expression, "they stationed me out here because they thought I could do the best job, but I do have an assistant that keeps me company" Bridge glanced over at a clock that was resting on the ground, "alright, it's almost 7:30am, they'll wake up maybe around 8:00am if I remember Sky and his rules..." he began rustling around in his bag and held up a piece of toast in a plastic bag.

"You're kind of scaring me with the toast thing." Sam admitted then realized Bridge had just said he was going to be tied up for half an hour before he even needed to be, "hey! I-"

"It's not easy to get food out here, especially good toast and butter. The smooth delicate texture of the butter, the right crispy crunch of the perfect toast, the butter spread evenly, the toast a golden brown, the perfection of it is just…"

Bridge trailed off leaving Sam frowning at him as he stared at piece of bread in the baggie, "uh…Commander?"

Bridge snapped back to reality and opened the baggie, "Want a piece?"

Sam thought for a few seconds. He was a bit hungry, but currently in no place to eat unless Bridge was going to feed him, "No, I'm good."

Bridge shrugged as he powered down at took a bite out of the pre-buttered toast.

The only sound was the crunch as Bridge ate. Sam leaned his head against the tree and closed his eyes for a while, just listening to the quiet and crunching. His whole body still ached from the hike from the day before and the position he was in wasn't particularly comfortable. He hadn't had a great sleep since Bridge had woken him up fairly early to get him out into the forest at this time in the morning. He had needed to do some major manoeuvring to get Nova off of him and get out inconspicuously.

He'd also just saved the world from Grumm…even though it was twenty years ago, it didn't feel like it for Sam. He'd had a Zord battle, fought over his morpher with Jack, survived a ship crash, yelled at Nova and now had a team that he just didn't know how to get along with. The events combined were slowly taking their toll on him; he just hadn't slowed down enough in the passed day or two to really realize how tired he was.

He slid down the tree till he was sitting on the dirt ground and leaned his head on his shoulder. He let out a small moan as he did.

"You alright?" Bridge asked curiously crouching down, "did using muscle mode really hurt you? If it did I'm sorry. But I was told that the muscle mode couldn't do any severe harm to a ranger unless…how does that muscle mode work anyways? Is it like a huge adrenaline rush? Like drink a million of those Red Bull things. You know when I was a kid I drank one of those and jumped off the roof of my house to see if I could fly. It said it could give me wings…but even if it did, the human body isn't aerodynamic enough for it to-"

Sam smiled as the older man rambled on. He'd really missed out on a lot when he went into Gold Badge training. He'd missed a lot of good times that could've happened, "It's alright. I just…got back from…twenty years ago. Everything here is so different. Just…so much has happened…"

"What's different?"

Sam let out a sad sigh and looked down, "I don't know how to get along with this team…I never realized how mismatched everyone is…I've always…looked up to Nova. She's been my friend for a long time, but…now I don't know why she'd so opposed to working with them."

Bridge nodded and took another bite of his toast, "She really cares about you," Bridge replied thoughtfully, "she knows her views make you upset. She tries little things to make you happy. When you needed to get up and she was sleeping on you she wasn't happy you asked her to move."

Sam raised his eyebrows, "Like what does she try?"

"Yesterday," Bridge said biting his bottom lip as he reflected, "you two blew up at each other. To make up for it she offered to carry things each time you made any indication you were struggling with what you were carrying. Before you say I'm wrong, her hands were full too Sam. Sam, since you've come back, you've probably been a completely different person to her and the other rangers. She's upset you seem to have picked so much up from us and not really retained things that you two learned together."

Sam laughed, "Since when did you come so observant?"

Bridge shrugged, "Probably since I became a ranger."

Sam nodded, "I see," he replied then sighed, "I feel like I've missed so much."

"Well, don't worry. I'll get this team all sorted out, then people will retell stories about you for years to come" Bridge said smiling as he patted Sam on the shoulder, "Alright, now I need to hide this bag somewhere…do you think behind that tree is too obvious? Cause it can't be obvious. I mean if it's obvious then it's obvious that I set this up and it's obvious we can't have that." Bridge paused for a few seconds before adding, "Obviously."

Sam nearly whacked his head into the tree on purpose, "Nah, it'll be fine over there."

Bridge smiled and placed the bag there before proceeding to line himself back to the opposite side of the tree Sam was tied to. It took a few minutes before Bridge had securely tied himself to the tree as well, "Now we wait until someone tries to leave the house and sees us."

Sam frowned, "So right now we just wait…alone?"

"Yup."

"In a strange forest?"

"Yup."

"Tied to a tree?" Sam nearly squeaked.

"Yup."

"This has to be the stupidest plan I've ever heard."

"Yup…hey!" Bridge stopped as he realized he'd been verbally duped "I resent that! It'll work."

"Really?" Sam asked, "You want to bet on that?"

Bridge nodded, "sure, loser has to take Jack, Sky, Z, Sydney and the winner out for a fancy dinner and drinks afterwards."

Sam winced as he toyed with the idea of losing, "Bridge! I don't get paid **that **well."

Bridge allowed the use of his first name and smirked, "Fine then, just dinner."

"Bridge-"

"That's an order!"

_Back at the house half an hour later… _

Mimi arose to discover she was definitely not in her room at SPD. In fact, she honestly had no clue where she was, aside from the fact it appeared she was on the floor. She looked around the room a few times as things came into focus. Beth and Nova were sleeping on couches opposite each other, while the other rangers were sprawled on the floor. Then everything that had happened the day before came back to her and she groaned.

"Guys, come on get up," Mimi sighed as she started shaking Andre, Drew, Beth, and Chris in hopes of waking them up too.

"Ugh!" came Drew's response, "What time is it?"

Beth opened her eyes and looked down at her watch, "Uh…about 7:45am, why?"

"Why do we have to get up now?" Andre whined, "Carson will come and get us when he wants us."

Nova's eye flickered open as she heard the others chattering. She sat straight up and looked around a few times as she registered where she was. But one thing that bothered her was the lack of two people.

"Where are Omega and Carson?" she asked alerting the others to her state of awareness.

The other rangers scanned the room as well. None of them saw signs of Omega or Carson still being in the house. This made Nova slightly nervous but Chris livid.

"Do you think he went off to suck up to Carson?" Chris snapped angrily, "Damn it! What is with him? First Tate now Carson?"

Nova glared at the green ranger, "Hey!" she snapped back, "he doesn't **need **to suck up. Carson helped get him into the academy when he was younger, maybe they're just talking."

"What couldn't they say in front of us?" Andre argued.

Nova rolled her eyes, "It's too early for this."

"For once I agree," Drew sighed, "Chris, Andre, cool it."

Nova glared at the other rangers. She was well aware with Sam missing she was on her own against five obnoxious rangers who had no respect for her or her authority. She huffed and raked her fingers through her hair in an attempt to get it to look nice. She didn't bother checking to see if it worked before she got up and stormed out the front door.

Right into a giant hole...

Letting out a small squeak of surprise Nova managed to grasp onto the side of the door and pull herself out. She hadn't remembered there being a hole there before…

She slowly backed up into the house.

"Uh…was that there before?"

As if on cue the earth began to shake throwing all of the rangers off balance. Nova tumbled backwards into the house before pulling herself to her feet. A sickening crack was heard as Andre was thrown off his feet, smashing into the coffee table and successfully cracking it.

"Come on! Let's go!" Drew ordered as the group began to run towards the front door nearly knocking Nova back into the hole she'd just gotten out of.

"Wait! There's the-" Nova began but didn't get to finish as Drew, Mimi, Andre, and Beth bolted passed her…right into the hole in the ground. She nearly smacked her forehead in frustration as the shaking abruptly stopped leave Chris and Nova, the only ones not currently in a big hole.

Chris glared at Nova, "You could've warned them!"

"And they could've not run into the thing in the first place," Nova grumbled not in the mood to argue, "well obviously this is some sort of test."

"Or is it?" boomed a voice from above them.

All the rangers' heads snapped up to see a robotic looking guy with blue wires for hair, wearing a lab coat, hovering above them on what appeared to be an old version of a galaxy glider. He was waving his hands around manically and doing a melodramatic evil laugh. The rangers weren't impressed; because you know…they dealt with this type of thing everyday.

"Alright, what did you do to them?" Chris sighed crossing his arms across his chest.

The 'evil' being appeared slightly thrown off by Chris's casual attitude with the situation and took the opportunity to fire a bolt from the 'galaxy glider' at Chris's feet. The blast threw Nova and Chris back a few meters into the house. It then swooped down and charged at them on the glider, vanishing only a foot from the doorway.

This turn of events had clearly shaken Chris who had thought the being to just be a harmless training hologram. Nova was about to throttle the green ranger for just being himself when she heard something.

It was very faint.

"_Guys! A little help please!"_

Nova frowned and got to her feet coughing a few times before reaching the doorframe and looking around curiously. Drew appeared to have heard it too, but couldn't tell what direction it was coming from due to the fact he was below ground level.

"Oh shit…" Nova gasped as she saw two figures, faintly, near the forest area, up against a tree, "that can't be good."

"What is it?" Mimi demanded as Beth, now standing on Drew's shoulders was attempting to claw her way up the sides. She wasn't making a lot of progress as the hole was pretty deep and only their ranger reflexes had stopped them from getting any bad injuries.

"A little help?" Beth asked attempting to get Nova's attention.

"Yeah! That's what I heard," Nova replied, "I heard Omega and Carson…"

Chris reappeared and reached down to pull Beth out of the hole, "That creepy robot guy probably has something to do with it."

The pink ranger was unceremoniously hauled out of the hole, Beth and Chris managed at get Mimi next (when she stood on Drew's shoulders), leaving Drew at the bottom of the hole. They had no clue how they were going to get him out. There wasn't exactly a ladder anywhere.

"Just leave him, we'll come back later," Nova sighed rolling her eyes at the rangers and getting annoyed at how much time they were taking.

"Well you know, Sam would have wanted you to help," Beth sighed gently, prodding Nova in hopes she's help come up with a plan.

It seemed to do the trick and Nova paused to consider what she could do. It took a few minutes before she came up with anything remotely good, "When Omega was on the ship looking for food. He pulled out a thing of rope from the bag that had the toaster in it."

Mimi's eyes lit up, "That's right. He took the bag to the kitchen! I'll be right back!" she bolted into the house.

Beth smiled warmly at the Nova Ranger who waved it off and crossed her arms impatiently. Chris and Andre looked down at the pink ranger and smirked. She'd obviously picked up on something very important. Andre was just about to comment on it when Mimi reappeared holding the rope triumphantly.

"Here we are, we're coming Drew"

"Well hurry up!" Drew called back, scratched the back of his neck nervously then added sarcastically, "I'm a bit trypophic…"

None bothered to ask what that meant as Chris and Andre lowered the rope into the hole and anchored it while Drew climbed up it. Beth and Mimi just clapped as the blonde ranger finally got out of the hole. Drew smiled and nodded at Nova who glanced down awkwardly at the ground before uncrossing her arms and adjusting her shirt.

"Well, let's go find Carson and Omega," Beth suggested then looked around, "where did you say they were?"

Nova glanced around a few times, "Uh…by the forest."

Drew nodded, "Then we go that way."

Nova frowned, "Now wait a second-"

Drew threw his hands up, "Nova, we all want the same thing…almost. We want Carson back for sure, and you want Omega back...and we don't want to leave him here. They're in the same place. We might as well stick together."

As much as Nova tried to find a flaw in the logic of Drew's plan, she couldn't see any and conceded defeat. She followed the B-Squad rangers, with a pouting look on her face. When she had Sam back, all deals were off and she could deny any of this ever happened.

"Alright, lead on."

Beth smiled at Nova and while the others carried on farther ahead, she stayed behind and walked beside Nova who refused to look up at her. The group walked towards the forest for a good ten minutes before anything else was said. When it was, surprisingly it was Nova that broke the silence.

"Go join the others, I'm fine."

Beth shrugged her shoulders, "I'd rather walk with you. After all, we both want Sam back."

Nova looked up at her and snorted, "Yeah sure you do. You know, you don't need to pretend to like me or Omega. The others make no attempt to."

Beth studied the woman for a few moments, "You've known him for a very long time, you his partner, roommate…why don't you ever call him Sam?"

Nova shrugged, "I was always taught to refer to him by rank. I'm more comfortable that way. He's never given me any indication that he minded."

Beth nodded, "You know, he seems to have made a very sudden change in attitude," she remarked casually, "do you have any idea why?"

Nova shook her head, "No, one minute he's one person, now he's someone completely different. Tate, Delgado, Carson, even Landors by the sound of it appear to have taken an almost instant liking to him and…I don't know. He was on this mission awhile ago, some top secret thing I can't talk about. He won't tell me anything about it even though he's allowed to, but maybe it's the reason for his change."

Beth listened to the other woman and began trying to piece things together. The way she talked about Sam's attitude change, she sounded upset; sad would be the right word. She also sounded upset that he was keeping something from her that didn't need to be kept secret. She felt warm inside to be finally seeing a part of Nova that was a bit vulnerable. The other woman probably didn't even realize what she was revealing, answering the few questions.

"Why don't you like regular badges? I mean are you trained to not like us?"

"Why don't you guys like gold badges?" Nova answered back, "Are you trained to not like us?"

"Touché,"

_Back with Sam and Bridge…_

"Well, they got passed one obstacle," Bridge noted and smiled at the blue wire robot guy in front of him, "thanks Boom, great job, nice job with the teleporting Sam, looks as though they're already starting to get somewhere. I must say, it's nice that the B-Squad gets along with each other…makes this a bit easier. I also like that Beth girl, I think she has something to do with how Nova's responding…"

Sam had his head leaning against the tree lazily, "How can you tell all this from here?"

"I can read auras, remember?"

"And Boom," Sam sighed as the ex-gadget tester turned the image inducer off, "When in the galaxy did you get here?"

Boom smiled proudly, "I work for Bridge, and I'm his assistant. I get paid in gadgets to tinker with and toast…and an actual salary from S.P.D. too, isn't it great? I live about a fifteen minute hike from here in another house."

Sam thought for a few moments "When did this arrangement start?"

"About four months ago."

"Ah."

Boom smiled and hugged the tied up ranger, "Nice to have you back Sam."

"Thanks Boom," Sam replied hoarsely as Boom squeezed him a bit too tight for his liking.

"Oh sorry…" Boom said wincing and letting go of the Omega ranger.

"It's fine."

Bridge squinted as he watched the tiny figures of the rangers walking towards the forest, "Alright Boom, you're up again."

Boom nodded and gave him a salute before turning the image inducer back on. This time though he looked like a red man-rhino mix. He hoped back on the glider and sped off. Sam smiled as he marvelled at how Boom could balance on the board, when twenty years earlier he had trouble on his own two feet.

"How long do you think it will take them to get here?"

"The length of a song," Bridge replied then paused before he started singing horribly off-key, "One million bottles of beer on the wall, one million bottles of beer…"

Sam let out a groan.

_Back on Earth…_

Z picked up the Krybot and hurled it at the Dairy Queen that appeared to be taking much more of a beating than the other stores. She could hear Sky and the pig battling it out behind her and Jack, judging by the crashing sounds Sky had gotten carried away…or didn't know his own strength. She couldn't see the battle raging behind her but could see Jack as he nearly clothes lined an unsuspecting Krybot.

It was such a strange sight she was having a hard time stopping herself from laughing.

She heard Sky's morpher go off with a beep and looked around trying to see where her ex-team-mate was. She couldn't see him amongst the chaos, but knew that since the mall was almost empty, that it wouldn't be hard to locate him when she wasn't preoccupied.

"How'd all these guys get here anyways?" Jack hollered as he front kicked a Krybot in the chest.

"I don't know! I haven't watched the news today," Z yelled back as she literally did the splits to avoid three Krybots converging on her. They managed to bump heads and she spun up onto her feet, "but it can't be good!"

"Trust me, it wasn't-"

Startled by the new voice Z spun around to see who had spoken.

You could've knocked her over with a feather…

"Syd?"

But she wasn't alone.

"Oh this is not good…"

Sydney snorted as she struggled against the hands on her shoulders, "You're tellin' me"


	11. Chapter 11

Here's the last update for a little while, May is really hectic for me with school and stuff…

* * *

It had been nearly an hour and Sam was rhythmically beating his head against the back of the tree he was tied too. Bridge had gotten bored with "Bottles of beer" and had moved onto "The song that never ends"…

"Come on Sam, sing along! This is the song that never ends, it goes on and on my frie-" Bridge insisted and sang as his badge went off, wiggling a hand free he answered it, "Bridge Carson here, go ahead."

"_Bridge, I need the rangers back," _

Bridge frowned, "Sky, I told you I can't- nice suit," he cut himself off as he looked down at the badge to see his friend in a black ranger outfit, "It's very flattering…" realizing that probably wasn't the best thing he added "what's wrong?"

"_Containment card break on IO, I'm over my head in false alarms and actual ones. A few of the others are here helping, including Jack, but it's hard…and there's a problem even bigger than all that…"_

"What?"

"_Well…okay, I was off fighting this pig monster, I barely got it contained when Z came running over saying Mora and three other monsters are holding Sydney hostage…they've got her here in the mall, we can't take all these Krybots and three monsters…no matter how dysfunctional" _he sounded defeated_," I need my rangers back…"_

Bridge thought for a moment as he untied himself, "Hostage how?"

"_Just have her with them, we can't get through all of them…"_

Sam could practically see a light bulb go on in Bridge's head, "Alright, I'll get you your rangers back…but here's the plan, come on Sam, pay attention, this involves you too. It involves you telling them a lot of stuff though, things they're not aware of right now." He beamed "Heck, this is better than the plan I have now…had earlier, I mean do you really believe-"

"_Get to the point!"_ Sky snapped over the communicator.

"If this plan works you owe us dinner," Bridge reminded Sam then focused back on the communicator "Alright, here's what we do, but we'll need to pick up a few things from my house first…"

Back with the other rangers Boom was beginning to wonder what exactly was running through their heads. Boom had set up a trap he'd read about in a really old history textbook, one where you tied a rope and lured a rabbit or small animal in it. When the trap was sprung, the poor animal would be hanging upside down from the trap…

That was currently where Mimi was…

"Stop laughing!" she demanded and pouted as Chris and Andre attempted to stop, but didn't have any luck. It was just too funny.

"Seems fairly primitive," Nova snorted, "I can hardly see Carson putting it up."

"And who would've taken Omega and him anyways?" Drew sighed having lapsed back from calling the other officer Sam after about an hour of his disappearance, "they're both capable fighters…"

"Weird electric wire head guy?" Chris suggested, "I mean, he did just kind of appear and disappear, maybe he's a native or something…"

A harsh beeping sound was heard causing all of the rangers to spin around to see where it was coming from. It sounded like a morpher, but none of them had one…so that made no sense. They stopped looking when Mimi began complaining that she wasn't feeling too good. Nova looked around, bent down and picked something up. She went over to where Mimi was and it was revealed she'd picked up a sharp looking rock. She began sawing at the rope.

Boom clicked the button on his communicator to silence it. He glanced down to read the text message displayed in the screen. A small smile played on his lips.

This was going to be good.

Chris and Andre caught on to what Nova was doing and moved into position underneath Mimi to help her down when the rope was severed. It took a few minutes and the beeping continued. Beth and Drew spread out to search for the source.

It was a few minutes later when Nova finally managed to cut Mimi down from the tree. Andre and Chris caught her and got her on her feet safely.

"Uh…thanks…"

At that moment Sam and Bridge seemingly materialized out of nowhere in front of them.

"Ow," Sam groaned, "pain…"

"Sorry, I forgot it's a little weird if you're not used to it," Bridge replied

The other rangers froze.

Where'd they come from?

"What the he-" Nova began but caught herself, "Commander, what's going on?"

"Slight change of plans," Bridge announced.

"I want a vacation," Sam grumbled under his breath brushing off his uniform and cursing it for being partially white, "these last few months have been ridiculous! Why do they send every misfit team here? Can't I get one only slightly dysfunctional team?"

The five B-Squad rangers raised their eyebrows as they began to pick up on the last few words of Sam's mini rant, which of course made no sense to them whatsoever…

"Holy! You did it again! The random appearing and disappearing!" Beth partially exclaimed, partially accused as Boom stepped out of his hiding place, "AH!" she shrieked breaking her calm demeanour "Another one!"

"What wrong?" Boom asked in concern.

"Containment break on IO," Bridge sighed, "they need help. I'm going; you guys are going to stay here with Boom and finish your training okay? You're no help to Earth if you're going to get caught in trees-"

Mimi flushed at the remark and looked down at her feet shamefully.

"But Commander-" Drew began but stopped when Bridge gave him a 'glare of doom'.

"You are to stay here, you too Sam," Bridge sighed looking behind him to where Sam was standing and winking at the younger man who nodded as though the gesture had not occurred, "this is too dangerous if you guys can't even pass a simple test."

The rangers looked down embarrassed.

"Alright, Sammy, rangers, see you later" Bridge said then called, "S.P.D. Emergency!" and strangely not using the normal hand motion. In an instant he was surrounded by bright light and jumped over the tree line, out of sight before they even saw his suit secure into place .

There was an awkward silence as each ranger tried to decide on what would be the best way to break the silence.

"Who are **you**?" Andre asked pointing at Boom and frowning at the new arrival.

"Well I-"

Suddenly Boom disappeared.

Nova's eyes bulged, "What did you just do?"

"Where did you come from?"

"Why does he call you Sammy?"

Sam frowned and looked down sadly, "Alright, look, they haven't been one hundred percent honest with all of you-"

"I knew it!" Chris proclaimed smugly

Sam ignored him and continued "look, Carson, Tate, those guys, they got me into the Gold Badge program, I owe them a lot…and…well I heard Mora, that girl who helped Grumm out was one of the escapees. They're going to need help…"

Silence then…

"What else are you hiding? What did you do to the poor guy?" Chris snapped angrily. He'd called it! No gold badge could be trusted.

A sly grin broke onto Sam's face, changing his demeanour instantly, "Well, I do know something you don't know, and I wouldn't be able to tell you if Boom was here. As for where he went? He's fine."

Pause

"What do you know?" Andre demanded eagerly.

Sam smirked, "I know how we can get your morphers back and keep them reinstated, all coming out like perfect little rangers in Sky's…err Tate's eyes and getting us off of this planet in the next few hours."

"How do we know you're not lying?" Chris snorted folding his arms across his chest.

"Don't worry about that," Sam replied winking at Beth who's face had lit up like a Christmas tree, "Just trust me."


	12. Chapter 12

I won! I won! We had student elections at my school for next year and I won! Hehehe...I am very excited!

* * *

Sydney wasn't sure how she'd managed to get herself into this situation. She replayed the events over and over in her head, yet each time she couldn't figure out, why her? Why IO? Why not the Mars base? Z was much better at handling a major crisis then she was, especially since IO was such a small base compared to Mars.

After she'd set the autodestruct Dr. Quinn and her had bolted. The A-Squad rangers had gone to their SWAT flyers while the B-Squad cadets had taken the regular Zords and most of the base's personnel out in them. Dr. Quinn had managed to get into the green ranger's Zord, but she'd been unable to get that far due to a sudden increase in monsters.

The monsters had broken the seals of the other containment cards at the base and it had been flooded with bad guys instantly. She'd gotten cut off from her group and had attempted to get to the docking bay where a few smaller ships were, but she'd been startled when she'd seen a young girl standing in front of her, looking away.

She'd frozen in surprise.

And a monster came up from behind and took advantage of that.

When she'd awoken she'd found herself tied to a chair in the cockpit of a ship that was carrying the young girl and a huge group of other monsters. She knew the young girl all too well.

"Hello Sydney," the girl had said smirking juggling a group of silver Krybot balls in her hands, "we're going on a trip to visit those lovely ex team-mates of yours."

And she hadn't been kidding.

When the ship had landed Sydney found herself being dragged to a strip mall by two of the monsters, the young girl following. That's when she'd found Jack, Z, and a strange black ranger.

And that's where she currently was, struggling madly against the weird looking monster's holding her down and watched the strange ranger cut through Krybots with Jack and Z's help and managed to fend off a portion of the monsters barrelling down on him.

"Why are there so many of them?" Z snapped in frustration, "and why didn't I get a Command morpher?"

"I don't know," the black ranger snapped back as realization donned on the former pink ranger "talk to Kat when we get out of this."

Sky was still an active ranger? That was a new development…

"Who were you talking to?" Jack asked as he ducked under a blasted fired by one of the monsters and flipped backwards.

"Bridge," Sky replied lashing out with his back foot to get the strange looking plant monster away from him, "I was attempting to get my rangers back, the results are mixed…"

"Meaning?"

"I got Sam, not so sure about the others, or their timing, hiyah!" he kicked out again, nailing the plant monster again, sending it backwards through a clothing store window. The display window had a bunch of hats in it and when it broke the hats fell onto the plant, temporarily distracting it. His morpher beeped again, "Damn it!" he clicked it open, "Tate here, go ahead."

It was Kat, "Sky, there's more monsters attacking downtown…"

Sky let out a groan, "Alright, I can't wait any longer for them, program a morpher for Z and one for Jack and upgrade C-Squad to active status immediately. If you still have any time left on your Kat morpher use it…Aw god…This is ridiculous…"

Kat nodded in understanding, "Alright, sadly I used my time up years ago…but I'll upgrade them immediately, however they aren't trained with the Zords"

"Least of my problems right now," Sky sighed silently praying he wasn't going to end up with a fifty foot monster on his hand anytime soon, "Tate out."

Mora giggled as she watched the fight like a normal person would watch a sporting event, "Oh this is fun, and I couldn't have planned this better if I tried."

Sydney glared at the little girl who was playing with strands of her hair by twisting her index finger around some of it. Her immense disliking for the little girl hadn't been tamed over the years and the fact she still looked so young and so like how Sydney remembered her, did not do any good either.

She attempted to kick out at her the monsters holding her, but didn't manage to get enough force to push both of them back. She let out a sad moan at the development and decided that she'd probably have to wait for one of them to get distracted.

This was going to take a while.

_Back with the rangers…_

"How do you think we can accomplish all of this?" Drew asked pointedly crossing his arms across his chest.

Andre rolled his eyes and groaned as it hit him "Guys, think about it. Carson needs to have two ships here because of Boom, right?"

They nodded.

"But what about getting our morphers? Tate has them and he won't give them back," Mimi sighed.

"They'll be in his office," Chris pointed out, then frowned, "or with Dr. Manx."

Nova groaned, "Obviously not, they'd have to be here because if we passed the training…" she trailed off as it donned on her exactly what she was saying, "son of a-"

"He'd have to reinstate them!" Beth finished excitedly, "So they're here?"

Sam shrugged exaggeratedly and watched as the B-Squad rangers excitedly grouped together.

"They must be in one of the bags," Chris stated as he frowned, "but it'll take forever to get back to his house from here. By then Newtech could be a hole in the ground, not to mention we need to factor in the trip back."

Sam folded his arms across his chest and smirked as he looked over his shoulder, apparently seeing something the others weren't. That's when Nova noticed something.

"Omega, where's your morpher?" she asked frowning. That wasn't right.

"Uh…Carson took it." Sam replied uneasily scratching the back of his neck.

Nova nodded is response, unconvinced by the explanation. Gold Badges didn't go anywhere without their morphers unless they were revoked or suspended. Carson wouldn't have had time to get the authorization to suspend Sam's morpher. She frowned and earned "What?" look from Sam in response.

He was acting bizarre.

"So how are we supposed to get back to his house?" Andre sighed, "Omega? Nova? Any ideas?"

Nova shifted uncomfortably, "Well I guess…we could…I have honestly no clue." She admitted.

"Well Carson and Boom don't live together," Sam pointed out.

"That would be…sketchy…" Chris remarked pursing his brow.

"He's trying to say we should look for Boom's house," Nova sighed then paused, "that's actually a really good idea…"

"But it could be miles from here," Andre pointed out.

"Not farther than Carson's, we'd have run into it in our hike to Carson's house through the storm otherwise," Mimi chimed in.

"And maybe he kept the morphers there; it would make more sense then with us at the other house. Even with the warning Carson wouldn't honestly trust us to not go into his room," Nova pointed out.

"This is great," Beth said excitedly as they formulated the plan **together**. She looked over at Sam who winked at her again. She beamed.

It was a plan.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Drew asked gesturing with his arms, "let's go!"

Excited by the prospect of making some real progress the B-Squad rangers followed, and so did Nova. Sam held back slightly and turned back again and smiled at the figure in the trees.

"Calm down and get going," he whispered under his breath at the figure, "the image changers work for hours on end."

"I just hope you're a convincing **me**," the figure replied, his voice muffled by his white helmet before disappearing.

"Omega, you coming?" Andre called back seeing he was still standing by the tree.

"Yeah, coming," he replied as he felt for his back pocket when his morpher was. He hoped he could convince the B-Squad and Nova that he was Sam until they reached Boom's house and that none of them asked why he was carrying Bridge Carson's badge with him…

_Meanwhile…_

Inside all S.P.D. headquarters is the maximum security containment zone. This is where all of the most violent and ruthless criminals ever captured on the planet are contained, save a few that are transferred around in order to keep gangs of violent aliens away from each other in case of a containment failure.

A perfect example of this was the separation of Mora and Emperor Grumm. Mora was sent to the Moon base for containment, and then more recently shipped to the IO base.

Grumm however, had never been moved…

Mora smirked as she watched two monsters sneak away from the fight. S.P.D.'s Earth force was so thinly spread her plan couldn't fail.


	13. Chapter 13

Sorry guys, my6 dad's on vacation so I haven't been at my Aunt's house and this is where this story is located. But here's another update, sorry for the large gaps...as usual, please review and if you've ever seen 3 Ninjas, I have a story under there too. Please review it as well.

* * *

"This is boring!" Mora whined angrily looking down at her wrist that failed to hold a watch, yet she acted like it did, "you're taking too long!"

Both monsters and rangers were almost moving sluggishly as they attempted to triumph over the other. They were all so tired from fighting continuously, even Sky was fading having contained two of the monsters on his own and the C-Squad…well…they just weren't a lot of help. They'd barely managed to contain one monster and were now struggling with the ranks of Krybots that had dwindled down to about ten after the first hour according to the reports Kat kept giving him sporadically.

The two cadets holding the ranks of red and yellow rangers were doing a pretty good job considering they were on C-Squad, but the others were having a hard time focusing on the task at hand and not the fact they'd just been upgraded to active ranger status. It was better than no help, but not by much.

Jack and Z were on the verge of toppling over from exhaustion, they didn't have the luxury of ranger suits to keep them going, Kat had promised morphers for them but had yet to deliver due to having to upgrade one ranger team already. Sydney was attempting to cheer them on from her position, but it didn't seem to be fuelling them as much as she had hoped for.

Then something weird happened…

Sydney wasn't being held captive anymore; she was standing beside Jack and very confused.

"What the-"

Out of nowhere, the Omega ranger jumped down, flipped and landed in front of the former pink ranger.

"SAM?" Sydney blurted out as he charged his morpher up.

"It's me alright, Omega morpher, electro mode," he slammed his hand to the ground and the electricity travelled to throw two of the monsters off balance, "I'm your one man rein enforcements for the next little while…"

"Slight déjà vu…" Sydney remarked frowning as she dodged a blast from the monster that had been holding her before.

"You're telling me," Sam grumbled as he flipped forwards and side kicked one of the monsters that looked like a strange oyster.

Sky let out a sigh of relief in the fact he had one ranger back, "Sam, go downtown and help the C-Squad. We'll be fine here."

"Omega ranger! Not again!" Mora cried angrily then paused as what the Galactic ranger and former pink ranger had said and considerably paled at the revelation that hit her, "SAM?!" her voice cracked at the outburst "No…no…can't be the same one…"

"Better believe it sweetheart," Z laughed at the young girl's expression, but was then shot in the arm by a blast from the oyster. It barely grazed her shoulder, but it had charred part of her uniform and it looked like she was bleeding, "aw sh-"

"Z!"

"Omega, go help C-Squad! That's an order!" Sky snapped as he used Sam's arrival to his advantage and aimed his badge at the fallen monsters, it flashed a bright X and in seconds two more containment cards landed on the ground, "they're on Main Street."

Sam nodded and powered down, (since it didn't require as much strain as using his powers while morphed. He'd made and exception going through space in case he missed Earth somehow.) Sam then teleported over to Main Street to try and find the others hoping the carnage wasn't too great.

When he arrived he was dismayed to find C-Squad had been upgraded and civilians were crowded around the sidewalks, watching as Blue and Green rangers were forced to power down due to injuries. He bolted towards the scene where the Green ranger groaned loudly in pain.

"Are you alright?" Sam asked quickly, "anything broken?" The slightly stunned cadet shook his head and Sam helped him up, "Alright, go back to HQ and have someone check you and your friend out okay? Being hit like that isn't something you can normally walk away from perfectly unharmed." He then turned his attention to his morpher, "S.P.D. Emergency!"

He morphed again and ran towards the monster wondering how things had gotten out of hand so quickly.

The Green ranger watched the Omega ranger run off and suddenly felt horribly guilty…

Maybe Gold Badges weren't completely awful…

_On Zentor…_

"Look!" Mimi squealed, "There it is!"

And sure enough, there was a small cabin in the forest. It was just sort of sitting there out of place from everything else. A high fence surrounded part of the property, so they could see in, but not really get in.

"And an AV!" Andre exclaimed pointing through the fence to the small black AV sitting beside the simple looking cabin, "we don't have to hike back to get to a ship!"

Even Nova let out a small smile that thrilled them to no end.

"Aw, Nova, you should do that more often," Drew insisted.

Nova's face snapped back into a serious expression, "What?"

"Smile…"

There was an awkward pause.

"Nova and Drew sitting in a tree-" Andre began before Mimi smacked him upside the head to get him to shut up.

Drew and Nova suddenly stared at each other totally disgusted and turned away from each other quickly both shaking their heads as if trying to remove the mental image the Blue ranger had just implanted. Beth rolled her eyes muttering something to herself.

"Eww." Nova gagged.

"Now how are we going to get over that fence?" Mimi asked trying to direct the conversation to something that didn't give her bad mental images of the Red and Nova ranger together.

"Sam" winced as he silently hoped that they didn't ask about teleportation powers…

They didn't.

He let out a sigh of relief, but luckily no one noticed.

"Well, I can probably jump the highest," Nova remarked inhaling deeply, "if someone could give me something a bit higher than the ground to push off of…"

"Sam" smiled and folded his arms across his chest. Finally a bit of real progress…

There was a few seconds of silence as the B-Squad exchanged small looks with each other. It appeared that they had come to the same conclusion that Nova was the highest jumper and that she needed something to push off of. They hesitated a bit though, all hoping (save maybe Beth) for another alternative.

"When I get over I can unlock the front from inside," Nova continued looking back at "Sam" for advice at interacting with the B-Squad. He was grinning like an idiot though and she turned away from him. It was scaring her slightly. She'd never seen him so…cheery…

"Alright," Drew agreed, "Andre, kneel down."

"What?"

"To get you back for the fourth grade teasing," Drew sighed rolling his eyes, "bend so she can push off of your back."

"You do it!"

"Hello? I'm Red ranger; you listen to me, not the other way around."

Nova suppressed a sad smile as she remembered so many conversations between her and Tate that had sounded freakishly similar.

After a bit of arguing (and rather reluctantly) Andre bent down, agreeing only if Nova took her shoes off. It made no sense to her since her and Sam did stuff like that all the time as rangers, she was light,…in fact, she'd left a couple of footprints on the back of Sam's white uniform that had taken a while to get out when he had attempted to wash his suit. They'd since decided that only Nova was to do laundry so he didn't end up as the pink Omega ranger…she still wasn't sure how he'd managed that.

Her boots off to the side, Nova took a bit of a running start and pushed off of Andre's back. It sent her into the air and not completely over the fence, but close enough she managed to grab onto the top of the fence and pull herself over. She landed on the other side with a loud "thud" and small moan.

"Nova? Are you injured?" Beth called over.

"I'm fine," came Nova's reply, "hang on a minute."

The minute turned into several as the B-Squad rangers sat and waited. Chris had started tapping his foot impatiently on the ground.

Mimi turned to face "Sam". She watched him as he just stood there, "Well you've been awfully quiet."

"Really?" he asked in return.

"Yeah,"

"Oh, I hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, normally you're trying to get us all to get along," Chris pointed out.

"You seem to be doing fine on your own."

The B-Squad rangers froze and there was silence.

He was right. They hadn't been arguing as violently over the time period since they'd started looking for Boom's house.

"Wait, what-" Andre began but was cut off.

At that moment Nova began calling at them. She'd finally managed to get the door unlocked and the gate opened for them to come in.

"Sam" smiled triumphantly and watched as they gave him strange looks, then bolted towards the entrance, he followed behind them. Beth returned his smile.

Whatever had been planned was working. It hadn't started working until quite recently, but it had started working.

"The security is ridiculous for a place like this." Nova sighed, "It's all computerized stuff, even though this place looks like it could've come out of the 1940's."

"Well, if I recall Boom used to be Dr. Manx's assistant," Drew replied bringing his index finger to the bottom of his chin, "so he'd have to be smart. Let's search the inside of the house for clues though; I'm not sure how long we have before Newtech is kaput…"

Beth led the way into the house and together they searched.

Drew and Chris searched the rooms in the back while Nova and Mimi searched the living room-kitchen area, Andre took the closets, and Beth began in the bedroom, "Sam" supervised by pretending to help Andre. They combed the house before Beth found a safe in the floor underneath the bed. It was pretty small, but it was definitely something.

"Guys! Come quick!"

Nearly getting stuck in the doorway as they bolted towards it all at once the inactive rangers found themselves soon trying to help Beth shove Boom's bed off to the side, though not exactly sure why. They soon got their answer and began arguing on how to get it open and who could do it the fastest.

"Sam" watched the argument holding his head in his hands, "Guys…the more time you waste arguing the longer it is going to take you to get your morphers back…" he muttered to himself as the group frowned at each other.

"Well I think that I can break it open," Chris insisted.

"It's a computer lock you dope," Mimi groaned, "you have to hack it, I bet Beth can do it-"

"Well I had some training in-"

"Know what Nova? Shut up!"

"Well I-"

"Calm down!" Drew snapped at the bickering group looking over to Beth and "Sam" for help. The latter simply continued to watch while Beth just quietly looked over the safe while imputing the odd, "Be quiet" here and there. She seemed pretty distracted.

Suddenly it opened.

There was a pause.

"Way to go Beth," Mimi remarked as the others patted her on the shoulders for her effort, "that was speedy."

Beth frowned batting their hands away, "But I didn't do anything." She insisted.

"I did though."

And suddenly Bridge Carson was standing in front of them dangling a small remote control in front of their faces. He smiled cheekily as he then pocketed it and looked at them as he folded his arms across the front of his chest. He bounced slightly on his feet as the rangers just stared at him not understanding what had just happened. Nova was the first to vocalize her utter confusion…

"I thought Omega had been acting strange," she said slowly as Beth lifted the lid off of the container to reveal their badges just sitting in front of them, ripe for the taking, "So if you're Carson then..." she trailed off uncomfortably.

He nodded.

Drew looked down suddenly ashamed, "Commander-"

Bridge let out a sigh and held up a gloved hand to silence the young Cadet, "You guys have a long long way to go, like a really long way to go, you're starting to take baby steps though… and that's all I can do. I can just show you that when you work together towards something you all want you're much more successful. People normally come here for SWAT training, you're not far enough." The rangers looked down sad except Nova who muttered something about it not being fully compatible with her suit anyways, "Earth needs help, we're going to go to Earth and if you all including Sam can work together I might consider giving you the upgrade to work with, understood?"

They nodded.

He rolled his eyes then added in a more commanding tone, "Understood?"

The other rangers caught on and snapped to attention, "Yes sir."

"Good, I have dinner riding on this…" he replied pulling his badge out of his back pocket and connected with Sky's badge, "Sky, I need Sam back."

"_He's with C-Squad, you'll have to contact him directly-hiyah!"_

Carson nodded as Drew's eyes narrowed.

"He upgraded C-Squad?" Andre growled angrily as even Nova seemed to take offence to this and crossed her arms. Her and the B-Squad had somehow developed the ability to look like a very pissed off gang in about thirty seconds flat, "Oh, we are so much better than them!"

"Let's go," Mimi demanded.

"How?" Beth pointed out, "Earth is a ways away…wait…" she paused as something donned on her "how did Sam get to Earth already?"

Bridge frowned as things started to make sense, Beth's reaction from earlier… "He hasn't told you…"

The rangers shared a look.

"Told us what?" Drew pressed.

"Nova, contact Sam, I don't know what frequency Gold Badges are on, just tell him I need him here ASAP." Bridge sighed tiredly, this was so messed up. Now he wanted to be back twenty-five years. He wondered if he could borrow Sam's morpher after all this was over and just go back to when things weren't so stressful…no, maybe he'd take Nova's, after all she was the one who didn't end up being a ball of light and such…oh dear, he was rambling in his mind now…

Nova frowned but did as requested. Retrieving her morpher from the box she connected to Sam's and waited a few seconds because the distance made it hard to connect instantly, "Omega, you there?"

"_Yeah," _there was a small pause as an explosion was heard in the background_ "you guys pass?"_

"In a matter of speaking," Nova sighed, "Carson wants you here ASAP."

Pause.

"_ASAP?" _came the slightly weak reply.

"Yes."

There was a long pause, _"Alright, where are you?"_

Nova looked around, "That assistant guys house, why?"

"_I don't know where that is."_

"So?"

"_Well I need to know where I'm going don't I?" _

Bridge went over to where Nova was and spoke over her shoulder, "Meet at my house okay?"

"_Commander, couldn't you just use the ship? It takes a lot out of me to go between planets...what about the SWAT vehicles? They go ridiculously fast, you'd be here in a few minuets. That's what happened when you had to get m… " _his voice trailed off uncomfortably, _"look, I'll be blunt, C-Squad is awful and everyone else is exhausted, I don't think I can leave."_

"I'm confused," Mimi admitted glumly as she overheard the conversation.

Bridge pondered for a few minutes as various grunts and explosions were heard over the open communications line, "Alright, we'll use them instead, Carson out."

Nova closed the communications slightly worried when Sam didn't respond to that. It appeared Bridge had gone into full Commander Mode as he began ordering the rangers around and warning them that the SWAT vehicles were only temporary unless they could prove themselves soon. He then began directing the rangers to the various locations of the entrances to these vehicles.

Drew grinned, "You know, we might just be getting somewhere," he told Beth, "shouldn't have doubted you."

"No big," Beth replied shrugging as Bridge motioned for them to follow him, "I know when I'm right, all I have to do is wait for others to catch up."


	14. Chapter 14

"Hiyah!" he called as he kicked out and sent the monster flailing backwards. This was getting old, fast. He was tired, he was hungry and he wasn't getting much help from C-Squad. He wanted Nova and the others back and he hoped it would be soon.

Why was it that at the only time in the passed three years that a ranger team had not been in Newtech that a million criminals decide to come at once? Sam wasn't sure of the odds, but knowing his life they were probably pretty good.

He glanced around and saw small crowds huddled and watching the battle in awe and horror at the same time, like they were watching a car crash. Everything was going to hell but they were unable to look away. He wanted to screech at them angrily, but of course that would serve no purpose except to scare a few small children…

Flipping backwards, he managed to avoid being blasted by the criminal in front of him, but the blast knocked a hole into a nearby building. You could see into the office building where dozens of workers were scrambling to get out. Some members of the crowd ran over to go help the workers inside, dispersing the crowd to some extent, allowing Sam more room to manoeuvre. Powering up his morpher he sent a blast at the monster, stunning him and sending him stumbling backwards.

"Any time guys…" he muttered under his breath as he heard a shriek from behind him. He whirled around to see rubble from the building raining down on the crowds, "aw…damn it!"

He bolted away from the monster and briefly powered down to teleport the rubble out of the way and over to it landed on top of the monster, burying it and knocking a young woman with an almost beehive like hairdo out of the way in the process. He began panting as the monster collapsed to the ground from the weight, unable to move. He flipped his morpher to judgement mode. A red "X" indicated the monster was indeed guilty and he contained him quickly a small card falling in place in front of the rubble.

He inhaled deeply trying to slow his breathing as he went over to the rubble and picked up the card. Well that was a first; he'd never been able to take a monster out like that before…

The crowd of people began clapping and Sam flushed. Never had a group of people stayed in the area long enough to see something like that happen. Normally the crowd evacuated like smart people enabling SPD officers to do their jobs better.

"Uh thanks…" Sam began but was cut off by the beehive haired woman who swung her arms around him and planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek, "eww…" he reacted without thinking, but the woman ignored him.

"My hero!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"No problem Miss," Sam replied prying the woman off of him and wiping his cheek with his sleeve, "doing my job…uh…"

"Hey we helped too." The C-Squad Pink muttered, put out that they weren't getting any attention.

The C-Squad Yellow wrapped her arm around her friend as she powered down, "Face it, he did all the work…I bet though he'd put in a good word for you if you go help him escape from the clutches of Beehive over there."

"Ugh! A gold badge? No thanks."

The C-Squad Yellow laughed and patted her friend on the back as Sam managed to get himself away from the crowd of people and over to them. The C-Squad Red shortly arrived so they were almost in a small huddle. Concerned when they didn't see the Green and Blue Rangers they began rapidly firing questions off.

"Where are they?"

"Are they alright?"

Sam held up his hand to silence them so he could speak, "Okay, I sent them back to base to get check out by Kat, alright? They should be fine."

"Uh, thanks..." Red apologized nervously.

"It's fine," Sam brushed off, "come on, let's go find Tate and see how he's fairing."

They nodded and followed Sam as he bolted off down the street towards the stream loud noises and crashes. The C-Squad rangers trailed behind him excitedly; just maybe they'd get a chance to prove themselves without messing up and having a gold badge have to come to the rescue…

As the pushed passed crowds and dodged parked and abandoned vehicles Sam closed his eyes and let out a sigh taking some comfort in the fact the other rangers would be arriving soon. If they had gotten passed Bridge, maybe there was some hope for the team. The thought brought a brief smile to his face before he rounded the corner of a building and was forced to duck as a red blast nearly hit him in the shoulder.

He glanced up to see Sydney get thrown towards him and smash into a wall. He winced at impact and ran over to help her. She looked pretty dazed, but otherwise uninjured.

"You okay?"

Sydney nodded wearily, "I just hope your friends get here soon…"

"Me too," Sam sighed tiredly as his communicator beeped, "Omega here."

"_Sam, I need you back here for a few minutes, teleport over."_

"Sure thing Kat," Sam replied cutting off the communications and taking Sydney's hand, "come on, we'll get you checked out too."

"Sam-"

"Humour me."

"Fine."

_Meanwhile…_

The SWAT vehicles had been hidden in a secret area near Boom's cabin and once loaded up it hadn't taken the rangers a long time to reach their destination. For once they managed to avoid arguing on the flight back to Earth with took a substantially less amount of time then the flight there.

Arriving in New Tech to find pure chaos in the streets was what the rangers had been expecting, and it was sort of what they got. Hopping out of the vehicles the rangers noticed that in certain areas appeared to have been partially cleared already and news crews surrounding the scenes.

"Alright, Nova, Beth, you go north, Drew, Andre, south, Mimi, Chris, east, I'll go west. Let's see if we can help clean this place, okay?" Bridge ordered as the stepped out of the vehicles and immediately went in their separate directions. Bridge gave himself a pat on the back and already choosing where to go for dinner as he headed through the crowd of reporters. They swarmed to him asking for comment.

He smiled and began giving his commentary in what was happening. With any luck the day would end smoothly and Sky would be able to lecture them a bit, and then out for dinner. There was a very nice steak house a few blocks from here…

Nova bolted off in her direction, Beth struggling to keep up with the taller woman, who seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. Beth was willing to bet it was to find her partner who was yet to be seen anywhere. She let out a not so subtle protest but it was ignored.

"Come on! I think I heard something over this way!" Nova snapped but froze in her tracks as she rounded a corner to see one of the escapees looking around in confusion. The C-Squad rangers also stood there with equally confused looks on their faces.

"Hey! Where'd they go?" it muttered angrily, "I swear, they were right there…" its' eyes landed on Nova who was staring at it strangely, "hey! Where'd the other one of you Gold Badges go to?"

At that moment Beth called up, panting slightly, "Would it kill you to slow down for a second? I'm exhausted and breakfast was ages… ago…" she trailed off uncomfortably as she realized what Nova was looking at, "ah…"

Nova's eyes narrowed at the criminal's question, "You ready?" she asked Beth.

The shorter woman nodded in agreement as she pulled out her badge and went through a series of arm movements, "S.P.D. Emergency!"

"S.P.D. Emergency."

In a flash of coloured light the two women stood powered up in their ranger suits and the C-Squad did a very smart thing… they backed away, slowly…

"Nova morpher, electro mode!"

"DeltaMax Striker!"

The monster was stunned at the arrival of the two new rangers and took the two attacks right in the chest area. C-Squad watched in amazement as the monster was pushed back and Nova and the Pink ranger followed up with a series of punches and kicks. The monster managed to throw them off after a few minutes by blasting Nova and Beth backwards far enough for him to get up by himself.

He aimed a shot at Beth but was unable to complete it as the C-Squad Red managed to grab onto the neck area and pull the criminal backwards so its' shot blasted up into the sky and away from the fallen ranger. Red was quickly thrown to the side by the monster and as the monster aimed to shoot the Red Ranger something weird happened.

Nova bolted up and slid in front of him as the shot was fired.

"Nova morpher, barrier mode!"

With a flick a force field appeared and deflected the shot. Beth took the opportunity to attack with her Deltamax Striker. Within a few minutes and a bit of help from the C-Squad Red, the monster was judged guilty and re-contained.

"What's with Gold Badges lately?" Red asked raising his eyebrows at Nova, "Thanks."

Nova flicked her wrist up, "Don't mention it. Seriously, I have a reputation to upkeep." She sighed.

Beth wasn't sure if it was, but hoped the statement was a joke as she flipped open her badge, "Hey guys, it's Beth, we've found some more monsters."

"_On our way."_ Came Andre's reply.

"_Uh…guys…"_ came Mimi's nervously response, _"I found Delgado and Jack Landors…they're injured." _


	15. Chapter 15

Sam stared at the screen in awe, "This is live?" he asked for the hundredth time since Kat had decided to show it to him.

He'd teleported back to the Command Base in order to pick up the morphers for Jack, Z, and Sydney and to get Sydney checked out by Kat for injuries. It appeared he and Sydney had barely missed the arrival of the B-Squad rangers, Bridge, and Nova.

The monitors showed the rangers slowly containing monsters in groups of two and three and Nova, was with Beth and the C-Squad rangers he'd abandoned without thinking. They weren't just putting up with each other, they were actually working together.

He smiled and Kat patted him on the shoulder, "It appears Bridge is a miracle worker."

"You're not kidding… crap… I guess I owe him dinner."

"You'll find the promise of S.W.A.T. does that to people," Sydney joked, but her smile was as big as the others, "Sky will not believe this. He's been griping about your team for months. At least they're better than you were; it took all five of us to convince you." Sam winced at the remark as Sydney pecked him on the cheek and ruffled his hair, "It's been too long since the six of us were together. Now we just need Cruger and we're complete."

Sam nodded slowly and flushed as Kat's communicator beeped.

"Manx here."

"_Kat, it's Mimi… Delgado and Jack Landors, they're all... I guess they got over powered or something. Delgado appears to have a wrist injury or something and a few bruises and things, but they're fine other than that. I don't know where Commander Tate is."_

There was a deadly silence "Report back to base, all of the rangers. The monitors show little activity now anyways but…" Kat ordered then trailed off.

"There is no way B-Squad coming back contained all those monsters in such a short period of time." Sam added furrowing his brow, "So where did they go?"

At that moment the base rocked.

"The max security zone!" Kat gasped.

"_Wait, what?" _Came Mimi's confused response not realizing Kat was not addressing her.

"What about it?" Sydney demanded quickly.

"Mora came to Earth, why?" Kat asked in an attempted to explain her thoughts as quickly as she could.

"Grumm is still here!" Sydney exclaimed smacking her forehead and bolting out of the room, "Why didn't we think of that?"

"He's still in this base?" Sam groaned as he sprinted to follow and hand over one of the morphers in his hands, "That does not seem like the best thinking on S.P.D.'s part."

"Mora was moved to prevent the two from breaking out together," Sydney explained as the two rangers dodged the cadets rushing passed them; "Mora needs Grumm to be powerful and the other way around. She's obviously used the containment break as a distraction."

The base rocked again.

"If she lets all of those guys out…" Sam thought as he sped up so he was a step in front of Sydney and handed over one of the morphers.

"Mind the frankness, but we're screwed."

Kat began bringing up information on the screens in front of her, "Okay, B-Squad and Nova, report back to base immediately. Tell Jack and Z that Sam has morphers programmed for them. When you get here, head to the max security area. We think Mora's here to free Grumm from containment."

Her communicator beeped again.

"_Kat, it's Sky, Mora's heading for the-"_

"Max security area, got it." Kat responded as she tapped a few more keys.

"_I'm here already; on the bright side she only has three monsters and some foot soldiers with her. The rest of her "army" has been contained already."_

"Sam and Sydney should be there in a minute. The B-Squad, Jack, Z, and Nova are on their way. Judging from news reports Bridge is doing damage control with the media."

"_Tate out."_

Sky holstered his badge and aimed a shot at Mora. It was stopped by what appeared to be a giant version of "Cindy Sunshine". He groaned, why giant dolls? Why not a simple, normal alien for once?

It was a question he'd been asking since he'd gotten his promotion to Commander. All the other planets and moons had SPD branches, yet Earth always seemed to be the planet that got beat up the most. The history they had with ranger teams didn't help his thinking either.

He heard footsteps behind him as he fired his second shot which the small girl took in the shoulder. She cried out in pain and Sky would've felt sorry for her if she hadn't been trying to kill him for years. He glanced to the side to see Sam and Sydney a few meters behind him.

Sam was whiter than his jacket.

"Sam. What's wrong?" Sydney demanded quickly as she moved to morph. She paused. Oh duh, the doll and Mora hadn't done anything to help his mental health when they encountered each other the first time. "Sam, we'll talk about it later but for now I need you to cope."

Nodding weakly Sam morphed in time with Sydney, "SPD Emergency."

Her suit was nearly identical to the one she'd worn in 2025 as the pink ranger, except the number was now a roman numeral for fifty (L). She smiled behind her helmet and looked over at Sam who had his hands brought up near his shoulder. His morpher was charging up.

"Omega morpher, electro mode!"

With that a bolt of electricity shot out towards Cindy Sunshine and Mora's eyes narrowed as one other monster and foot soldiers stepped in front of her. The little girl slipped away into the complex, the third monster following her and scaring off two of the guards. Rolling his eyes Sky placed a hand on his visor is disbelief; he needed to hired better guards…

"How much did we miss?" Sydney asked pulling out her Deltamax striker.

"Not much. Nice to see you're okay by the way." Sky replied and Sydney smiled behind her helmet.

"Thanks."

"All right, Sam, go inside and catch up with Mora. I'll send the others as backup when they arrive."

"Right."

The white clad ranger sprinted off into the building as the other two rangers charged at the monsters. Multicoloured sparks flew as the attacks got more violent and the strength of both sides dwindled.

Sam ran as fast as his legs could muster and found himself trailing the little girl and the monster. He could see the larger monster, but had lost sight of Mora. Angrily he sent a blast at the monster's back, causing it to stumble forwards and fall to the ground.

He moved to jump over him but found the monster wrapped its' hands onto his leg and refused to budge. Breaking with regulations, he used his free leg to smack the monster in the face.

"Ow!" it roared as its' grip lessened. Stepping backwards Sam flipped his morpher to judgement mode as it struggled to get up from the earlier blast.

He waited for its' verdict.

"Hurry up" he muttered impatiently as it eventually landed on the X. Containing the monster he bolted after Mora and prayed he wasn't going to be too late.

Mora smirked as she disposed of the two guards with ease. No one ever suspected a little girl to ever to any harm and they wouldn't shoot her, even if they knew she was evil.

That was the problem with S.P.D., so much of their security was automated that it didn't take much force to get into the so called "maximum" security if the Power Rangers were already dispatched elsewhere. Horrible planning, really, even a little girl could do it.

She flicked through the draw of containment cards, laughing as she saw a few old "friends" in the mix.

Pulling Grumm's card out of the draw she moved to snap the seal.

"Power down!" a voice from behind her called.

Then it was gone.

She stared down at her hands for a second, not quite understanding what had just happened. She turned around, fuming as she saw a rather frazzled looking Sam, holding the card in his hand.

"Nice trick." She said coolly as her eyes focused on the card that the young man rotated with his index and middle finger.

"It's over Mora. You've put up a good fight, but your army is gone now." He said stuffing the card into his back pocket. He was tired, it took energy to morph and with the amount of morphing, fighting and powering down he'd had to do in the passed day or so, he wanted this over with.

"Stupid rangers." She growled, throwing a small blue object to the ground.

It released a batch of smoke and by the time it cleared the little girl was gone.

He dropped to the floor, leaning his back against the wall and tilting his head back. He closed his eyes.

"Damn it." He groaned as he looked around the room of drawers and thanked some higher power she hadn't tried to free anyone else. He looked down at the card in his hand, the infamous Grumm stared back and him, beady eyes narrowed, hurtling some R rated insults at the exhausted ranger.

At that moment Jack phased through the wall beside him. "Sam! Man, you okay? Where's Mora?"

Sam shook his head slowly, head lolling backwards, "I don't know. She somehow teleported out of here, but I've got this guy." He held the card up to Jack who let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank god, next time we see Mora, she won't be so lucky. The others just got here, those monsters outside are toast though. They're out numbered nine to two, come on."

Sam shook his head, "No. No thank you, I'm just going to sit here and if I have my way I'm not getting up for a really long time."

Jack smirked as he grabbed onto Sam's wrist, "Tired?"

"You have no idea."

Back outside, Jack's assumption was correct. Sky and Sydney simply let the current B-Squad finish the monsters off as they de-morphed and collapsed as well. The two containment cards that Drew picked up were the last of the warriors from the day from hell.

The B-Squad rangers de-morphed and looked at the exhausted rangers and Z who watched curiously with Mimi's coat tied around her wrist.

"So did we pass?" Mimi asked expectantly.

Z smiled and Sky nodded tiredly.

"Yes, yes." He conceded as Jack appeared phasing out of the wall, literally dragging Sam with him.

Unceremoniously Jack let go of Sam and the younger man simply glared, "I hate you." He muttered.

Jack smiled, "Aw, a team reunion. It's almost enough to make me want to come back."

Sky looked over at him wearily, "You want a job?"

Jack looked startled, but then considered it, "Hmmm, sure, why not? It's been a long time since I've worked at SPD."

"Congrats, you are now Head of Security for SPD Earth because I am firing MacDonald's ass next time I see him! Today was one big security breach!" Sky grumbled angrily then let out a sigh, "I need a vacation."

Sam hadn't bothered to move from his lying position. "You're telling me."

Later that evening, Bridge had caught up with the rangers and congratulated all of them for a job well done and gave them a promise to upgrade them to SWAT next time they visited him, acting as if he lived next door. None of the rangers were particularly enthusiastic about going back to Zentor, and decided SWAT could wait.

Sky gave Sam three weeks off from active duty and Nova two, leaving the other rangers stunned and confused. It was explained as being given time to get them used to being on Earth more permanently. The other rangers weren't happy, but didn't question it.

Sydney contacted those from the IO base that she could and discovered most of them had fled to the Jupiter base and were fine. Plans were underway to rebuild the IO base and to construct a memorial for those who had lost their lives.

To celebrate, the B-Squad had decided to go catch a movie. Through prodding from Beth and Mimi, Chris finally agreed to let them invite Nova and Sam along.

Beth was chosen for the task and found Nova with ease. After inviting Nova and having her eventually agree to come along, she asked about where to find Sam. She simply explained he was out with some old friends and went to change.

Really he was sitting with Jack, Z, Sydney, Bridge, and Sky in that little Steakhouse that Bridge had been thinking about.

After all, no matter how reluctantly, the new team was working together and for that, he owed them dinner.

* * *

The End

Well, there you go. I'm sorry for the delays and lack of fight description, it wasn't flowing properly. Thanks for coming on this adventure with me. I might write an alternate ending later, I'm not sure this one is fulfilling enough...


End file.
